Encryption
by legendarytobes
Summary: AU - Sequel to "Impetus" - Chloe searches for the secret of her origins and is drawn to both the Kawatche caves and a doctor in New York. All while Lex is hovering in the background.
1. Chapter 1

**1**

Encryption

-You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You  
>haven't even begun.<br>-Tara, from BtVS (4.22) "Restless"

-Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because of unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by the excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.  
>-Plato, <em>The Republic <em>qtd. in the beginning of _Flowers for Algernon _

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Chapter One

It's musty in the cave. It always is. The dust is so thick down there that if she were human, she'd be doubled over in a coughing fit. Clark always is whenever she can convince him to follow her down here. But she's not human and he's not here. It just her in the cave, floating delicately above the dirt floor. Just her as she holds her hand out in mid-air, lining up her key with the indentation in the wall.

It's quiet down there, so still and silent that she can hear every rustle in the fabric of her clothes as she moves, can almost if she tries hard enough hear the scritch scratch of the bugs that have burrowed into the cave walls. She loves it here in a way she can't explain to anyone, not her father, and not Clark. Everything always feels right here, like it was left especially for her. These walls and paintings are more than just the heritage of Kawatchee people. They're here history, her story, and even if she can't prove it yet, she can feel it deep in her soul.

Being here is the closest to being home that she's ever felt, even more than _The Daily Planet _and that surprises her just a little.

She releases the disc from her hand and it hovers there for a minute, and she takes that pause, that moment of anticipation, to shift her position, to make sure that, at least literally, her feet are planted firmly on the ground. The sigils etched into the rock face begin to glow, first red, then blue, and finally gold. The disc is pulled forward, fitting itself perfectly into the wall.

Holding her breath, she waits for whatever comes next, for whatever revelation or truth will finally be granted to her after a lifetime of searching.

There's a building hum, a flash so bright that even she with her invulnerable eyes is forced to slam them shut.

There's that light.

And then darkness.

And nothing in between.

Screeching tires woke Chloe up. Disoriented and disappointed, she sat up and blinked, staring straight into the fluorescent headlights of a very expensive sports car. For just an instant, the lights were so bright that she could almost believe that she was still in the middle of the caves, that the answers she so desperately sought would still be revealed to her.

That illusion didn't last long.

The driver's side car door slammed shut, and she was brought back to the here and now, to the fact that she was lying in her cow pajamas in the middle of the highway leading out of town, and that there was no legitimate reason for this to be so. Hell, there wasn't any lie she could think of, even with her writer's imagination, that would come close to alleviating the suspicions of the owner of the car.

Sighing, she started to push herself to her feet when strong (for a human) hands pushed back down on her shoulders. Chloe decided to humor or would-be rescuer and let him push her back to the ground.

Steeling herself, she took in a deep breath and stared defiantly up at a familiar pair of hazel eyes. "Lex."

He frowned and once again, Chloe had that odd sensation she often had when dealing with him. There was a wariness, a terrible and calculated scrutiny in his gaze. It was the look of a man intent upon solving the problem of nuclear fusion or three rubicks cubes at once or of, ostensibly, a short blond girl from the suburbs of Metropolis. And yet at the same time there was a genuine concern there. He cared. He was worried.

Her stupid stomach fluttered then and she promptly reminded herself that this was the same man who'd investigated her for at least a year (not that that had come as a surprise), who had sicced a low life paparazzo from _The Inquisitor _on her and her family. He might care about her, but he cared about her secrets more.

Of that she was almost positive.

"Chloe, my God." He said, running his hands over her shoulders and her arms. "I didn't hit you did I?"

She shook her head and forced her way up. "Of course not. You can tell by how I am clearly not pavement pizza."

"There's no need to snap." He said, touching her arms one more time to reassure himself that no damage had been done. As he trailed his fingers over her forearms, his frown deepened. "You're not cold."

"So," She replied, her chin and shoulders held high.

"It's February in Kansas and too cold even with the best cashmere and wool coats on." He said, gesturing to his winter friendly apparel. "You were sleeping out here. You should be freezing."

Chloe sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "It's late…or early depending on how you look at it, and I so don't want to play twenty questions right now. Can't you just take me home?"

"Am I supposed to not notice anything?" He asked following her to the passenger side of his car and opening the door. Holding it out for her, Lex waited until she was seated and buckled before he walked back to his own seat.

When he had started the engine and turned on the heat, she answered him back, "You wouldn't be you if you stopped being so observant. I suppose it's a little much to ask that you keep your investigations of me private. Are you still hiring underlings to do your dirty work for you?"

Posture rigid and voice tight, Lex kept his attention on the road as he spoke, "I think you'll remember that I do all the wet works myself."

"I never asked for that."

"But it had to be done, and you're my friend and I wanted to protect you."

"Then stop asking questions."

He hazarded a glance at her and gave her a wry smile. "Could you, Chloe? Could you stop seeing the inconsistencies in the world, the stories lurking just beneath the surface, and turn a blind eye to it all? Choose perhaps a nice stint as a homemaker over being a headline writer for the _Planet _?"

"It's not about my reputation or the mark I want to make."

"Fine, forget the career aspirations. Could you stop ever asking why? I doubt that you could."

She shook her head. "No, I couldn't." She ran her fingers over her palm, still dusty from the highway. In her mind's eye, she could see herself back at the cave, pressing even more for the answers she craved. Ever since Gabe had given her back the key to her ship, her need to know had been consuming her, dominating her every thought, her every desire.

If things hadn't been so tense this past week, she'd have enjoyed the irony in the fact that the alien artifact, that _other _half of who she was, had made her more of an investigator than ever.

Lex nodded at her reply. "I can't stop searching either." He paused and gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Am I also supposed to ignore that you passed out less than a mile from the caves you discovered."

"That's a very Eurocentric perspective there. I didn't discover anything. I fell through a fissure and found a place that a lot of other people have used over the years. It was always there."

"Fair point." He conceded. "But they were lost even from the Kawatchee until there was you. I find that so interesting."

"You find everything about me interesting."

"I do." He said, glancing back at her, and, again and like always, the look he gave her was equal parts true emotion and all-consuming curiosity. She was used to the concerned friend attitude and the mirthful amusement at her wit, but the older she got, the more time she spent with them, the more she noticed something else in his looks. There was a hunger there, too, that had nothing to do with her secrets.

It made her feel flushed in a way even her first ever cold never had. She loved Clark, really she did, couldn't imagine how she could have survived high school, and Smallville's weirdness, and **her **weirdness without him, but there was always something about Lex. Something inviting, something there as powerful in its own way as she was.

Puritans held that people who sold their souls to the devil wandered off into the darkest woods, signed a book bound in human flesh, dealt with the darkest of beast. In their time evil had always been ugly, brutal.

She knew better.

It was seductive and charming, always had been.

Lex wasn't evil.

Despite their differences and the lies piling up between, he still had his moments, instances in which the good man he could be shone through, like with flying in specialists for Ryan or calling in her father when she was out of her mind on Red K. Yet, it seemed to her that they fed the worst in each other. Over the last 18 months, they'd left quite a bit of collateral damage in their wake-Whitney, Phelan, Nixon.

He was dark and dangerous, seductive and inviting, and even though she knew better, she couldn't always squelch the brief flickers of attraction she felt when he looked at her like _that _.

Shaking her head, Chloe grabbed a hold of herself. Sarcasm often helped with that. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm not that interesting. I mean, Lana's beautiful and even without the cheerleader bit all the guys in school are lining up to date her, and even if you weren't going for the superficial, Dr. Bryce is a lot smarter than I am. Hopkins trained and all that. All I do is work at the school newspaper and sometimes intern at the _Planet _."

"You do a lot more than that." The double entendre in that was glaringly obvious.

"Subtle is not your strong point at five in the morning."

"I'll try for better next time." He quipped. "Why were you out there, Chloe, really?"

"I hear that sleeping on tarmacs does wonders for your back."

"Try again."

"Lex, what was the first thing I told you when we agreed to be friends?"

"Not to offer you fava beans and a nice Chianti?"

"Ha-ha. No. I told you 'ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.'"

"I'm tired of biting my tongue, Chloe, and I'm even more tired of the lies. They're better than Clark's. Get that kid over for a game of pool and throw him a few curve balls-"

"Mixing your sports terms, I see."

"Many apologies. If you get Clark talking over a game, ask him a few key questions about you and he fumbles for excuses worse than a freshman stoner caught with a cheat sheet at his final exam. If you ask him, adrenaline pretty much does everything."  
>"Ah, the mysteries of endocrinology," she quipped. "You're the one who pushes, Lex. I'm giving you everything I can. I'm giving you a Hell of a lot more than I give Lana or my minions at The Torch or most of the other people in my life short of Clark and my dad."<p>

"So do I have to see you naked to get anything of substance out of you?"

"Boy if ever there were a sentence that could be misconstrued." She said, unbuckling her seatbelt as the car came to a stop in her driveway. "For the record, Clark's never seen me naked."

Lex arched an eyebrow at her. "Even with that radical change in personality that seems to come over you every six months or so?"

"Even then. Second, it's not about intimacy. It's about trust."

"You don't trust me."

"Do you blame me?" She sighed and patted his shoulder. "It's nothing personal. I don't trust anybody."

"You trust Clark."

"There are things I've never told him, things he wouldn't understand but that you do."

Lex nodded. "So he still doesn't know how Whitney lost his scholarship."

"No, he doesn't. You understand the grey and the way things really are. I have you for those thoughts and wishes that I can't share with my family."

"The dark things, you mean."

She shrugged. "Some, not all of it. You do have a wicked sense of humor and are the best read person I know."

"I resent that. This is Smallville. If it's not printed in a _Sports Illustrated _or a _Playboy _, these people haven't read it."

"Don't forget _The Inquisitor _," Chloe replied glumly. "My dad's in love with that paper. Yesterday he made me read this expose on Atlantis."

"Oh the horror."

"Thank you, Kurtz." He laughed at that and she continued. "See, you get that. I…no one gets all of me, not ever. Clark gets the editor, the girlfriend, the-"  
>"Small town heroine."<p>

"Let's not start up with that now. I told you. I'm just a right time, right place kind of gal. I get lucky."

Lex frowned, as if he'd bitten into something incredibly bitter, but didn't argue her point. "So you've said."

"But yeah. You're right. Clark gets all of that, the paragon or whatever, and my dad gets his little girl. The same bundle of joy he took home from the, um, orphanage. He still sees me as about three years old. To the rest of the town I'm just the strange city girl."

"What are you with me?"

"I don't know yet, but I do get to be imperfect. I get to make mistakes and be petty and be _human _."

"Flawed, you mean."

"And I was never terribly fond of apples to begin with, but, yeah, with you I'm flawed and that's okay because you're not going to put me on a pedestal." Maybe in a lab, she thought to herself, but never on a pedestal.

"Clark's an idealist."

"And you're a cynic to match me or possibly Dana Scully."

He laughed again, enjoying the moment of geek solidarity, despite the tension still between them. That was the odd part of their relationship. There was always tension there, always discontent, but they were able to sneak in moments of affection and camaraderie too. They were like two shipwreck victims lost at sea, taking in desperate gulps of air between crashing waves. Eventually, they were both going to drown, but they had now and they had those blessed breaths of fresh air. "You know,' He said speculatively, "Even Scully had a close encounter." His eyes narrowed on her as he said that and she felt herself shiver.

The waves had come crashing down again.

Opening her door, Chloe started to climb out of the car. "Goodnight, Lex. Thank you for the ride."

He pulled the passenger door back into its latch. "It was my pleasure, and, of course, if you ever want to tell me what you were really doing on the road, the mansion is always open to you."

"Begging again, Lex?"

He shrugged. "Maybe, but something tells me that Gabe and Clark aren't going to be any more thrilled by your late night pavement rendezvous than I am. If you need a break from it-from everything they expect of you-then you know where to find me." He finished, gunning the engine and speeding away.

Damn, the little bastard sure did know how to make an exit.

Chloe sighed one more time and looked up at her father's bedroom window where the light had already been turned on. He'd be down soon. Time for another batch of waffles. Time for another uncomfortable truth and another argument and another chance for her father to close his eyes and pretend that none of this was happening.

Her father loved her-all of her, Chloe was as sure of that as she'd been of anything else in her life-but he didn't want to lose her to her other family, to who she'd been.

On the porch step, Chloe turned for an instant and glanced in the direction Lex had sped off in. In some ways it was a shame she couldn't bring Lex into her confidence. There were some days when she thought he'd understand her better than her family. He'd get the need to break away from what your father wanted for you, know what it was like to crave the truth like a drug, to feel that pull of destiny calling.

Because, for lack of a cheesier term, this was what was happening.

The Key was calling to her and it wouldn't be denied, not any longer.

And while she longed for it and its revelations, she was also afraid.

And alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

Lex's tail lights barely winked out of sight on the horizon before her father opened up the front door. He was wearing a pair of sweat pants so long they pooled at his ankles and a simple t-shirt that said "College" on the front of it. Despite his Belushi-inspired wardrobe, her father's mood was anything but mirthful.

"Chloe Maureen Sullivan, you get in this house right now!"

As quickly as humanly possible (Although it was a real struggle not to slip into superspeed at the moment, whatever she had that analoged adrenaline had started pumping through her the minute her father yelled), she hurried into the house, listening for the door as it slammed shut behind her.

She was only moderately surprised to find a bleary-eyed Clark, his glasses tilted unevenly on his nose, half-dozing on the living room sofa. The bang of the door awoke him fully, and he bolted upright in his seat. "Chlo?"

"I'm here. Jeez, guys, no need to go to Defcon 1 or anything." And the words were no sooner out of her mouth than Clark was at her side, wrapping her up in a fierce hug. She could hear his heart hammering in his chest. and she bet that if she strained her senses hard enough, she could her a similar staccatto rhythm coming from her father.

Reluctantly, Clark pulled away, but he still kept both arms wrapped loosely around her waist. "God, we were so worried. Your dad noticed you were gone about an hour ago and he called me. We thought that..." He trailed off not even able to voice the rest of it.

She knew what he was thinking. The threat of low men in yellow coats and lab experimentations was always present in her life. It was a worry that plagued her every day, especially after she'd learned everything about herself, and it was the thing her father worked hardest to prevent.

She swallowed and leaned into his embrace. "I know, but I'm okay, really."

"We were still so freaked, though, we were just about to head out to The Torch-you know me and my spare keys-and then to the Rosses."

Chloe winced a little at the thought of poor Judge Ross being awakened before sunrise just so the men in her life could ensure that she was still in Smallville. Hell, knowing her father and his overprotective streak, he'd have insisted to speak with both Pete and Lana and end up dragging the other girl over to The Talon just in case. And even though she wanted to launch right into that old argument that she was old enough and (obviously) strong enough to take care of herself, that they were being paranoid, she couldn't quite do it. Not with their heartbeats reverberating in her ears and Clark's big earnest eyes staring back at her.

"I'm so sorry."

"Good. Just don't do that again." Clark said, giving her midsection a squeeze. "You're lucky I had my stupid phone on vibrate and don't even get me started on trying to sneak off the farm. Bicycle riding is not fun at night, stupid noisy truck motors."

Despite herself, Chloe giggled. "Sorry about that, but I'd love to have seen the huffing and puffing just a little."

Clark snorted. "Even Elliot got a boost from his alien friend. You're the worst Czechoslovakian ever."

"I'll keep that in mind," She replied, pulling herself away from him. It wasn't that she didn't want the comfort. In fact, after tonight with Lex's prying and the blind panic of waking up in the highway, she very much wanted his warmth. She was also incredibly touched that he'd come. Not surprised, Clark was nothing if not loyal, but touched all the same. She'd put a lot on him in the last year and a half. He'd had a lot of her emergencies to cover for. Threats in a corn field and covert spaceship recovery missions came to mind.

And the amazing thing, the thing she couldn't quite believe, was that he stayed. She'd never allowed herself the luxury of believing anyone outside of her father would ever love her. She'd come to that conclusion back when she'd merely been weird. After those twelve hours spent in her darkened basement, staring at her ship, and the bitter, lonely day after that, she hadn't even dared to dream that any human boy would love all of her. But Clark did, and he always had her back. Of course, when her dad had given Clark the top secret cell phone of emergencies (the Kents could never have afforded the luxury on their own and Clark asking for one would have raised questions), she was pretty sure Clark hadn't anticipated panicked 3 AM phone calls either.

She was just fun that way.

Still, she knew there was going to be an argument-considering how upset her father was how could there not be-and she needed to stand on her own two feet in order to state her side.

Leaning against the table in her family's foyer, Chloe eyed her father. He, too, leaned, but this time against the stairway banister. Their postures were identical and the confluence gave her idle thoughts about how powerful nurturing really was. All her tells were his, all her postures, and her habits right down to her coffee addiction.

Correction.

Most of her habits.

Her father didn't sleep on asphalt.

Finally, her father spoke, his voice steady yet loud. "Where were you?"

"Out."

"That's not good enough. I peaked out the window when I heard a car pull into the driveway. There's only one person in town who owns a Maserati."

Beside her, Clark's eyes grew even wider. "Did Lex hurt you?"

That was why she loved Clark. Even knowing what he did, even after dealing with the likes of Hamilton and Nixon, he was still blessedly naive. Other boyfriends would have assumed the worst of her or started up with some pig-headed display of jealousy. He was just worried that her greatest enemy (and paradoxically one of her closest friends) had finally figured out her weakness.

She shook her head. "It's not like that. Lex is still in the dark." Which, of course, was a half truth. Lex suspected a lot. God bless America and all that burden of proof stuff or maybe just the good old fashioned scientific method. Lex wouldn't move on her, wouldn't even voice his theories, until he had proof. That wasn't happening. she could play the shell game with him for forever if she had to.

"But you were still out with him." Her father continued, his speech beginning to speed up a little with his distress.

"It was an accident. He found me and I couldn't just speed off in front of him so I took the ride he offered. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's real nippy out there."

Okay, so maybe sarcasm was not the best idea right then, but she couldn't help that either.

Her father shook his head. "As if that ever bothered you before. What were you doing outside?"

Chloe had to give her dad credit. He cross-examined as well as Matlock. Maybe Moira hadn't been the only natural born investigator in her family. "This morning, I woke up in the middle of the highway about a mile from the Kawatchee caves."

"You what?" Clark asked, his eyes so wide that this time she thought they'd pop right out of his head.

"Just what I said. I woke up in the middle of the asphalt with Lex's car barreling down on me. FYI, this time it actually stopped before impact."

"Not funny, Chlo."

"Agreed," her dad said. "I can't believe you went out there after everything we decided on after your fever. You promised me, Chloe, that you were going to wait and really think about putting the key in those caves."

"I didn't do anything with the key."

"Don't lie, not to me."

Chloe refrained from rolling her eyes. She didn't lie to her father, much, and it was a little hypocritical of him to call her on being such a talented liar now. He'd been the one to teach her the art of it since she'd been too little to even understand English. "I'm not. I'm saying that I woke up there. I didn't mean to go."

Beside her Clark frowned, and she had a feeling he was doing that analytical stuff he did so well (and so conveniently when she needed Algebra II tutoring). "You slept walked, didn't you? When you mentioned all that vivid dreaming I was sort of worried it'd end up like that."

She blushed and looked away, concentrating very hard on the ground. "I think I slept-flew actually."

Her father blanched at that. "Come again?"

She could feel her cheeks flaring hotter with every second that ticked by. "I told you that I'd been dreaming of flying over Smallville lately and I think tonight I did a lot more than just dream about it."

"But you can't fly."

That was supposed to be true. She could float and often, to her annoyance, woke up several feet above her mattress before crashing down onto it. The crashing part was the reason she'd long ago abandoned the traditional bed frame. Her old bed frame had been cracked to pieces after an especially hard landing over a year ago. She also managed to get air borne when she and Clark were, ahem, distracted with things. It wasn't exactly a sore point in their love life, but it was very awkward. Even if she never got more than a few feet off the ground, Clark still had that whole fear of heights thing he was working on. Besides, it was annoying to have to interrupt making out just to ensure they were still planted on the sofa in the loft.

Clark might have a coronary if his mom walked in on them inflagrante, but his mother and her father (once he heard of it) would fall down dead if Mrs. Kent caught them breaking the laws of gravity.

It sort defeated her whole incognito policy.

However, even though she was an apt floater, she still, and much to her perfectionist frustration, could not make herself float consciously. She'd certainly never flown before.

Finally, she looked back at her father. "I think there's a first time for everything."

Her father paled. She knew that look too. She'd seen it a lot especially after the heat vision incident. Clark might calculate figures in his head, but her father calculated scenarios. Idly, she wondered what he really would have done with his life if he and Moira had adopted a normal-correction-a _human _child. She'd met a few of her dad's fraternity brothers over the years, heard the stories of the house's resident clown and jokester, and she knew the demeanor he presented to the world.

While her dad really was fond of the stupid knock-knock jokes and was a genuinely sweet guy, he was also a lot more. He was a man who'd learned and excelled in the covert arts, who could be C.I.A if he wanted, someone shrewd and incredibly determined. It didn't really gel with being manager of some crap factory in a no-name town in Kansas. Chloe had the sinking suspicion that if he'd had a child without the "special needs" he'd have been on the board of something by now.

But executives were high profile and nothing was worse in the Sullivan household than being conspicuous, even for good things.

He sighed and ran a hand through thinning hair. "We're really going to have to think about this one. I'd lock your windows at night, maybe even make up some bogus story about burglars and get bars on the windows, but I might as well be stringing up Play Dough and we know it."

Clark gulped. "Huh?"

Chloe shook her head. Her boyfriend was still so new at the covert ops stuff that trying to cover exposure wasn't his default setting. "Daddy wants to make sure I don't go all Mighty Mouse in public. Even if this is Smallville, public flying is going to make it obvious how big of a freak I truly am."

"Chlo-" Clark started.

"Not now, Clark." She said stridently. Clark was very PC Nazi and he had this whole thing about the F-word, um, the other F-word. He copy edited her stuff and made her take the phrase "meteor freak" out of every article she wrote. He also always called her on it when she used it in reference to herself.

Yeah, like sleep-flying was so normal.

"Besides," she continued. "I don't think this is a permanent thing. It only started once I got the key back. I think that it and the caves are calling to me. They're not controlling me or mind whammying me or anything but I think the nocturnal flights of fancy are related. If I just put the key in, they'll stop."

She didn't say "I think they'll stop." She _knew _they would. She could feel it, just in the same way she could feel her connection to the caves themselves.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea." Clark said, shuffling his feet a little. It had come out as helpful suggestion, even though he was as against her going to the caves as her father was.

God, he was always so polite, must have been a farmboy thing.

Her father, on the other hand, was much more vocal in his protest. "We already had this conversation and we agreed-"

"No," She shouted, throwing her hands in the air and stalking toward him. "We didn't decide anything. You threw out an edict and I had to follow it. I don't see why I have to do that this time. If I'd listened to you about hiding my secrets, then Lex might be dead, and I certainly wouldn't be with Clark. You're not always right."

"But I'm right this time. We don't even know what the caves would do to you. You just keep saying you think there'll be a flash of light. What then? What if it's a trick or what if it hurts you?"

"Why would my...they try and set me up to be hurt? That doesn't make a lot of sense."

"That's true." Clark interjected.

She nodded a little but kept her focus on her dad. This was really a Sullivan argument.

Her dad shook his head. "And we don't know anything about who sent you here. Who puts a three year old in a spaceship and abandons them? It doesn't seem to me that they ever had your best interest in mind. Hell, for all we know this is all some sort of experiment."

Chloe rocked back a little at that. She and Clark talked a lot and most of the time they stuck to more mundane things like The Torch or his chores or the latest DP Headlines, sometimes it got more serious and there'd be discussions over how to best thwart the latest meteor mutant. Sometimes he'd even get her to open up about the alien stuff. But there were certain things she never brought up, even with him.

She never, under any circumstance, talked about Moira, not since that morning in front of her ship. And she didn't talk much about her birth parents.

She wasn't sure which upset her more, Moira or them.

She was pretty sure it was them.

She'd broken her own rule just once with him. When Rachel Dunleavy had shown up so convinced that Chloe was the lost Luthor heiress, it had brought up a lot of questions about her adoption. She still couldn't understand how Lionel, of all people, had been involved with it, and she didn't want to know the price her father had paid for that bargain because surely there'd been a terrible one. Lionel always collected in the end.

That night Clark had surprised her as she was locking up The Torch and driven them both out to Crater Lake just to talk. She'd clammed up the minute he even mentioned Rachel and Metropolis United Charities, but he hadn't pushed. Had he been Lex, he would have. Hell, Lex had, even as she'd ridden with him in the ambulance to Smallville Medical Center. But Clark didn't interrogate.

He gave.

She'd never asked him about being adopted (nor Lana for that matter). It wasn't like that revelation had opened her up to some super secret club or that she'd even thought of it as another thing she and he had in common. Honestly, she'd never given his own experiences with it much thought. Compared to her trans-species adoption, she'd always assumed his had been a breeze.

Chloe'd been wrong.

Clark hadn't been adopted until he was almost four, and he'd been moved through at least (as far as he could remember) three different foster homes before the Kents had found him. Though the memories were sketchy, he'd painted quite the picture for her, nothing as over dramatic as an Oliver Twist tale, but it hadn't been pretty either. While her writing strength lay more with coaxing out the most revealing interviews, Clark's lay with human interest pieces. So she'd sat and listened to him tell his tale. He'd been so talented at bringing her into that part of his life that she'd actually felt the disappointment sharply in her chest each time he told her about another family abandoning him.

When he'd finished, he finally looked away at the moon rising over the lake (he hadn't taken his eyes off hers throughout his entire narration), and they'd sat in silence for quite some time.

Finally, she'd broken the pall by reaching over and placing her hand over his forearm. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay now. Like I said, a lot of it is still fuzzy and it's not like the other families had burned out cigarette butts on me or anything. I don't think the back and forth had that much to do with me. It was more like 'wrong place, wrong time' stuff with families trying to take on more financial responsibilities than they could handle. It wasn't personal."

His voice wavered as he finished, and she'd wondered if he was consciously aware of how he was Polly Anna-ing everything.

"You were very lucky, like me. Your parents now are amazing."

"I know." He said, giving a small smile. "But I still wonder about my real parents. Maybe they're out there somewhere, and they loved me a lot. Maybe they just couldn't take care of me. I mean, it's not their fault they couldn't afford to keep me, you know?"

She nodded. "And maybe we're just better off without both of them. Yours are about as likely as mine to show up, and if they did, it wouldn't be some long lost happy reunion. Hell, look at Rachel and her search for Lucille. You think that girl will be happy to find out her birth mother's psychotic?"

"Chlo-"

"No, it's not a fairy tale for either of us, and I'm glad they're gone. If they didn't need me then I sure as Hell don't need them."

And he'd let it drop, left it there, but he'd been subdued when he'd dropped her off at her house. Clark needed to believe that his birth family had loved him, had been good people. She wasn't sure what she needed. But she wasn't going to let herself be hopelessly optimistic about it, except, deep down she did feel the exact same way. She had some stupid Little Orphan Annie fantasy where her biological parents had only been forced to send her away.

They'd been wonderful and kind and loving, and they hadn't wanted to send her away. Maybe they were still looking for her even.

She'd never seriously considered any other alternative, but apparently her father had.

It made sense. He'd had a lot longer to consider all the angles than she had What if he were right? What if she were her by design? Hell, what if her people sent all their offspring off to colonize (fat chance there, she was probably a few chromosomes short) other planets? What if it were all some sort of survivalist experiment? Ah Hell, what if she'd been bred to be abandoned? No one ever said she hadn't come from a test tube.

That last thought made her more nauseous than the meteor rocks.

Maybe she was as sentimental as Clark but that scenario didn't _feel _right. She just couldn't believe that the caves were a trick or a trial. They were her haven, the place she fit better than even a ratty loft sofa, and they'd give her her answers.

They had to.

Taking in a deep breath, she answered. "It's not. I know it's not. I want to do this. Daddy, please."

"And I can't let that happen."

"Can't or won't. Admit it. You're terrified. Terrified that I'll find out that they're coming back for me and I can go home." He staggered at that, but she continued. She had a mean streak in her and when pushed, she attacked, drove the insults deep. "Hell, maybe we just got separated on the landing, and they're here right now, hiding just like I am, waiting for me." She squared her chin up at her father, trying to be as close to his height as she could. "Is that it then? You have to hold onto me so tight that you can't let me find my _real_family. Are you afraid I'll love them more than you?"

He reached out for her, and, despite how much she wanted to speed away, she let him touch her. When he spoke, his voice was low and quavered slightly. "Chlo-bear, that's not it."

And the slip into the childhood pet name let her know that he _was _afraid of being replaced. It wasn't entirely about keeping her safe this time.

It was about keeping her.

"Then what is it about, daddy?" She asked, her words coming out quick and clipped." Is all this because you need to keep pretending that I'm human?"

"We're not pretending anything."

"The Hell we're not. You never told me. I know you couldn't have when I was little and talked too much, but after the heat vision, after I had to uproot my whole life because of this you should have. If Lex hadn't hit me, would you have ever said anything?"

"Chlo," Clark prodded from across the room.

She turned to face him. "No, I need to know. Maybe if I'd known earlier...I don't know...maybe it would have been less scary."

"Chlo-bear, I couldn't. I didn't know how."

She spun on her heels back to him. "That's crap. You were just trying to ignore it. What? Did you think it would go away? Would you just have swept the floating under the rug too? How about the invulnerability? What if I had grown a tail or a third eye or something, would that have all just been a mystery ability too?"

"Don't be silly, Chlo, none of that's going to happen." Clark said, coming over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

This time she did slip into superspeed and was at the top of the stairs so fast that it left both of them with their mouths wide open in shock and confusion.

They just wanted to stop her from questioning. Clark, the eternal optimist, wanted to believe that everything was fine. He probably _did _think that. While her father wanted to ignore it.

This family always ignored everything, always hid and cowered in corners.

She was fucking sick of it.

The Pit Bull never would have backed down and neither would she.

Putting her hands on her hips, she glared back at both of them and shouted, "We don't know that for sure! Fuck, we don't know anything about me. I mean, just two years ago, if you'd said I'd be able to fly, I'd have laughed in your face. Three years ago, I wouldn't have been able to turn a school gym to cinders just by staring at it. What happens tomorrow or next year or ten years from now? What if I stop even looking human?"

"You won't." Clark declared and she knew that he believed that in that same sincere way he still believed in America and apple pie and probably even Santa. It was that black and white in him again, and he just couldn't see all the angles.

"He's right, sweetheart." He dad added, his tone gentle, but she knew that he didn't believe it. She could hear the way his heart hammered in his chest as he lied.

He was a Sullivan, after all, and they always saw everything.

She was sure he'd been worried about that very thing since the day he'd brought her home, and it had only gotten worse since the heat vision.

The way her eyes glowed...well that was anything but human.

"No one knows anything." She continued, her voice racing so fast that even she could barely make out her words. "I don't know _what _I am. Not who, what. Every other person you've ever met at least knows their species. I don't even have a word for what I'm supposed to be, and I am sick to death of it. Ever since I saw my ship, I've been obsessing over this, over all those answers, and I can finally have them. I'll finally have a clue about what's happening to me because it's not stopping. It's not getting better or slowing down."

"Chloe-bear-"

"No daddy. You don't understand, you couldn't possibly. I can _feel _it. Every day, I'm a little stronger and a little faster and every day even going outside feels different. Every time the sunrises I get a little less human. I'm a reporter. That's the only what I've got so far, and we always need answers. No matter how ugly they are, even if we're both right after all."

"I don't know what you mean, sweetie." Beside her father, Clark just frowned in confusion.

She shook her head. "I know you've been worrying about this two. I see the way you look at me sometimes, the way you worry your bottom lip. You're afraid it'll happen to." Her voice hitched as she finished and she could already feel those stupid tears welling up in her eyes.

Clark, finally getting it, started up the stairs towards her with his arms out stretched. When he spoke, it was in that same gentle tone he used with the more skittish horses on the farm. "Chlo, maybe right now isn't a good time to talk about this."

She backed up against the wall of the stairwell landing, once again denying his warmth. "It's never a good time, Clark, because you and my dad are scared for me. That's not going to change. You don't want to take the risk that the caves could hurt me. I don't know, maybe you don't even want to admit there's anything different about me to begin with."

That was unfair and she knew it, but it didn't stop her from saying it, but it did cause guilt to well up in the pit of her stomach when she saw how Clark flinched at her words. He never forgot what she was. He didn't think less of her for it, quite the opposite. He'd fallen into the role of her sidekick and accomplice and quite possibly the first member of her fan club. He was the one who was trying to help her learn to fly, even if it wasn't going so well, the one that tried to get her to open up about what she remembered from Before.

She'd been saying a lot of things this morning she was going to regret later.

Sighing, she flattened her palms on her forehead and shook head. "I'm tired."

"I know it's hard." Her dad said.

"No, I didn't mean it like that. I'm physically tired." She ran a hand through her bangs and gave a bitter laugh. "Obviously, I didn't get great sleep last night, and I can squeeze in a few hours before school, so we'll just let this drop until this afternoon. Okay?"

She didn't even wait for an answer as she sped off to her room.


	3. Chapter 3

**3**

Chloe decided that the Powers That Be loved irony, and that the man upstairs had made her irony's personal butt monkey. Here she was, desperately trying to stay awake in first period history class, biding time until she could escape to the comfort of The Torch sofa, and Mr. Mackleroy was unveiling a term project worth 50% of their final grade. That was enough of a bummer on a boring Thursday morning and a huge pain when she felt like her skin had been rubbed with sandpaper, which, incidentally wouldn't actually hurt but would play Hell with the sand paper.

But oh no.

It wasn't a term paper on the Reformation or a diorama on the Age of Enlightenment. Oh no, he'd gone to the first grade well for this newest project. They were going to do family trees.

See, ironic?

Fuck, whatever planet she was from probably didn't have trees.

She snorted. Maybe she'd just go for broke and paste pictures of E.T. and Stitch to her paper and be done with it. It was as good a guess as any. She'd do that a Hell of a lot faster than she'd start digging into Moira's side of her family. She didn't know much about them, honestly. Moira only had one sibling, her Uncle Sam, and he was now a three star general. Since girls with weird abilities and, worse still, aliens and the U.S. government didn't mix, she'd never been allowed to meet him.

Or her cousins.

That felt like a shame somehow. Even though her dad and The General weren't on speaking terms, they still received a Christmas card every year from the Lanes and she got a handmade card every year on her birthday. Lois was a consummate letter writer and had started making up family letters and what not since she'd been nine in order to keep up with all her friends and relatives she rarely saw while being dragged all over the world.

Her spelling was atrocious and her handwriting illegible, but she was a good writer, and always had the funniest and juiciest tidbits from whatever base she were on. She'd be a sure fit for Page Six at the Planet if she could ever learn to spell check. Anyway, since writing letters was nice and normal, her dad had let her be pen pals with Lois. It had been a relationship that had built slowly at first, with her giving polite thank you notes for the cards but over the last three years or so, they'd developed a constant correspondence and she looked forward to a letter every month from her.

Somehow, though, she always felt bad that her letters were highly edited. Lois knew about the meteor mutant stuff (actually believed it too, which just confirmed Chloe's suspicions that the other girl was born to be a tabloid journalist) and, of course, her relationship with Clark. However, she'd never mentioned anything about her abilities or where she'd come from. It wasn't safe to put in a letter, of course, and no one close to The General could ever be allowed to know. Still, she liked Lois a lot and wished sometimes that she could be more open with even that little bit of "family" she had.

She'd once asked her father a few months before the car accident, actually, if she could arrange to meet Lois some place neutral like at the Metropolis Central Park (her cousins were back to being stationed right outside of the Big Apricot), and he'd flat out refused.

It was odd to have a relationship with someone she'd never seen and probably never would.

It was doubly weird considering she was family, not blood, but family nonetheless.

And every time a new letter came, and they did like clockwork, Chloe couldn't help shake the feeling that if things were different, she and Lois could have been as close as sisters.

A lot of her inner thoughts started with "if things were different..." come to think of it, but she'd never been the most well-adjusted person to begin with.

She sighed when Mr. Mackelroy, handed out the form, and ducked her head to avoid Clark's gaze. She might be the one with the X-ray vision, but she didn't need it to feel him staring so intently at her. He'd been staring at her in homeroom, too, his brows deeply furrowed with concern. He'd actually stayed over in her living room after their fight this morning and had ridden along with her (despite her mood she couldn't help but smirking at someone as tall as he was crammed into a Beetle), but he hadn't said anything all day.

She was grateful for that.

Now if only she could make it through the next forty minutes of boring.

"God, this is the lamest assignment ever or what?" Lana said, setting her back pack along the far wall of The Torch and sitting down at her desk.

Lana Lang, who Chloe had always grudgingly admitted had a brain, has also turned out to be a much better person than she'd originally given her credit for. Yeah, she still was too self-centered and, yeah, she had a tendency to be indecisive and fickle, but she'd dialed down her mega bitch leanings to about a one. Apparently a lot of her attitude, status striving and quasi gold-digging were all Nell's influence. Lana had spent the thirteen years of her life since the shower trying to be everything her aunt wanted her to be.

And Chloe also had to concede that she understood how that felt. Ever since Moira had left, she'd strived to be the perfect daughter for her dad. Not that he'd ever hinted he didn't like anything about her and he clung so hard it was obvious he loved her. Still...her m...damn it, Moira had left and she'd spent her childhood terrified that against all logic her dad would leave her too. So she'd done everything she could to make him like her. She'd memorized all the classic SNL routines (it wasn't hard, photographic memory and everything). She did a mean Wild and Crazy Guys and Samurai Deli. However, her father had been less than thrilled with her take on Murray's "Nothing but Star Wars" song or her Conehead imitation.

Okay, so that was a little awkward looking back on it.

Still, she'd tried to be everything her dad could have wanted, despite her oddities. She'd always used her speed (since she'd gotten it) to try and keep their apartment spotless and she'd tried cooking a lot when she was younger until he'd begged her to save it only for special occasions.

So, yeah, she got it. Deep down, Lana had probably been terrified that Nell was just waiting to get rid of her too. Besides, Chloe had had the displeasure of meeting Nell quite a few times since she and Lana had become friends. The woman was a royal bitch. If Lana had been trying to model her aunt, there really hadn't been any other outcome but evil witchery in the end. However, it turned out that Lana's motivation in being everything Nell wanted-quarterback's girlfriend, head cheer leader, someone in Lex's inner circle-all came from the misbegotten belief that what Nell wanted was what Laura Potter would have wanted as well.

Several weeks after Homecoming last year, Lana had found her mother's diary and come to the awful realization that her mother was very much the opposite of her sister. She'd come to Chloe then and together the two girls had found an audio copy of Laura's Valedictory address that, to be honest, Chloe would have killed to have given herself. Then there'd been the cheating scandal with the football team and Lana had just dropped out of all of it-the cheerleading, working at the flower shop, trying so hard to worm her way into Lex's good graces.

In short, she'd given a big fuck you to Nell and had matured into someone who Chloe could believe was Laura's daughter.

Part of her Cher Horowitz-inspired makeover had included a rediscovery of her passion for art. Lana had loved drawing as a little kid but Nell had refused to pay for art lessons, insisting on ballet and gymnastics instead. But post her falling out with her aunt, Lana had picked back up her pen and was now the resident cartoonist for The Torch. She'd replaced Justin Gaines after he'd had his accident and, you know, turned homicidal.

Just another week in Smallville.

Chloe sighed and draped her jacket over her own seat. "I know. What are we five? Should we glue down some macaroni figures to the paper too? How about some glitter?"

"You know," Pete said, falling onto the sofa. "I don't see what everyone's complaining about. This is going to be an easy A."

"Yeah, for you," Chloe riposted. "Your family has lived here since the Jurassic. It's all Brady Bunch back to the pioneer days."

"Faulty metaphor," Clark said, leaning against the door frame. "The Brady Bunch was a step family."

Chloe snorted. "You so would have watched that too. In between Leave it to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show."

Lana chuckled to herself and pulled out her sketch book. "Still, that doesn't help us come up with a game plan for any of this."

"And I repeat, what game plan?" Pete asked, yawning.

"Oh gee, I don't know, what if you suddenly have a new family with two half sisters and a quasi step mom who doesn't like you very much?"

"Or what if your mom cut and run?" Chloe said, deliberately focusing on her computer screen. She wasn't in the mood to see Clark's puppy eyes right now.

"Or what if you're adopted?" Clark added after a beat.

Chloe snorted. "Who in this room isn't? Right, Pete. You so have it easy. Hell, Sam probably has his old one stashed somewhere. It'll take you five minutes and-" And there it was, this shrill noise ringing in her ears. It hurt. Oh god, it hurt and automatically, she doubled over in her chair and screamed.

Clark was at her side so fast she would have sworn he was the one with superspeed. "Chlo?"

Still doubled over with her eyes clamped shut, she whimpered, "It hurts."

Pete was hovering over her now too and she opened her eyes just long enough to see her two boys exchange a meaningful look. They knew the score. Chloe didn't hurt ever, not unless certain space rocks were around. "Chloe, do you want me to call your dad?"

God, the stupid ringing wouldn't stop. It felt like someone was pounding a jackhammer into her skull and she wasn't invulnerable. "No, I..." and she stalled then, shuddering and leaning into Clark. The key was doing this. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she did, and anything key related would just worry the others and her dad. She didn't want to deal with it.

Not now.

So she lied. It was what she excelled at, after all.

"No, I...it's just cramps."

Pete backed up a few feet at that, an automatic guy response. "Oh."

See the downside of being the whatever she was that, although nothing from Earth (so far, it's not like she'd tested out irradiating herself or anything) could hurt her, anything from her own planet could. Including her stupid hormones. So, yeah, three days out of the month she wasn't the happiest person to be around and of all the things to actually share with human girls she felt a little gyped.

This one thing she could so have lived without.

But it was a brilliant scapegoat for right now.

Clark frowned down at her and rubbed her back. "Do you need me to take you home."

"You are so not driving my car," She gritted out in between the ringing.

"Chloe," Lana said, swiveling her chair towards her. "I'm sure I have something in my purse. We can always go to the bathroom real fast or something."

Chloe struggled to her feet, taking a deep breath in the brief respite before the ringing started up again. "No, I...I'm fine. I just..." She grabbed her stomach as another round of shrill noise assaulted her ears. She wanted to clutch her ears-Hell, to fucking claw them off-but she didn't want Pete or Clark to be suspicious. She cast a helpless glance at Pete.

Blessfully, he got the hint. "Hey, Lana, you know what. I bet the nurse has something we can bring back for her, maybe something nice and with codeine." He finished, grabbing Lana around the shoulders and leading her quickly out the door.

When they were gone, Clark stood up and walked over to her. "If you speed home now, Pete and I can cut and drive over as soon as possible."

She shook her head. "No. It's, ah, it's fine. I just need to go."

"Chlo, I really don't think-"

And for the second time that day, she blurred out on him.

The ringing got worse the closer to her house she got and by the time she'd sped up to her dad's bedroom, she could barely think at all. With the way her head pounded, X-raying for the key was so out, so instead she started pawing through the various boxes in his closet. She'd been able to pinpoint the location of the key to that degree at least. It took her several long seconds-might have been years the way she felt-until she finally found her prize. It had been buried at the bottom of a collection of Moira's possessions that she'd left behind.

She had to give her father credit. The last thing she was likely to voluntarily search through was the box of Moira's things.

The second her hand clasped around the key, the ringing finally stopped and for the first time in ten minutes, Chloe could actually think again. Taking several deep breaths and making sure the key was still securely clasped in her hands, Chloe put everything back exactly as she had found it. She didn't want her father to know she had it, and she certainly didn't want him to know what she was about to do.

It took no time at all to get to the caves. But it did take time to put the key in. Once she was there, all her doubts, all her father's doubts, started racing through her mind. Breathing in deeply, Chloe held out the key in front of her.

She'd gone to far now to turn back.

Looking back between the sigils etched on the wall and those on the key, she frowned. Like she'd told Clark once, just because she'd come from wherever, didn't mean she knew how to read her native tongue. She had no idea how she was supposed to place the key in the slot, and as she shifted the key around nervously in her hands, she hoped that matching up the symbols that looked similar would do the trick.

It did.

No sooner had she moved the key into the right position did the some force from inside the wall itself grab a hold of the key and yank it into the wall for her. The symbols carved there began to glow a brilliant white like in her dream and, to her shock, they actually moved. The indentation that had absorbed the key opened up and began to shimmer with a mix of primary colored lights.

Chloe was about to chuckle to herself over the fact that Clark would have just loved the color scheme, when a huge bolt of light lanced into her.

She thought the ringing had hurt.

She'd been wrong.

The light encircled her and lifted her high above the floor of the cave. She could feel it digging deep into her skin and bones, and, odder still, she could feel her head pounds. Images were pouring into her mind and even with her superior perception she couldn't keep up with it all. She thought her head would explode with all of it. It was too much.

She screamed and shut her eyes and the rest was darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

Chloe'd never been drunk, for obvious reasons. Alcohol didn't affect her. Hell, lead paint chips didn't affect her either (long story there), although she still couldn't function in the morning without coffee. It was probably a psychosomatic thing. However, right now she felt like she'd pulled a bender that would make a Metropolitan socialite proud, and had the pounding in her head to prove it.

Rolling over, she groaned, "God, did anyone get the number of that semi?"

"Nope."

She sat up and instantly regretted it. She was still way to dizzy and the movement made her stomach roil. Settling back down on the floor, Chloe looked up and was surprised to see Lex hovering over her. "Lex? What happened?"

"You tell me. I had an emergency call from the guard on duty telling me that vandals had broken in and were playing with the excavation equipment. He reported an explosion." Lex narrowed his eyes at her. "Imagine my surprised when my vandals turned out to be you."

His tone indicated he was as surprised to see her as he was to file taxes on the fifteenth of April. God, she so was not in top form for this. But it wasn't like she could ask him to come back later and dealing with Lex always meant that she had to be at her shrewdest no matter how tired or hurt or generally confused she was underneath it all.

Swallowing back her own nausea, Chloe started to stand up. "I can imagine." She riposted, struggling to her feet.

In a replay of the previous night's interaction, he put his hands on her shoulders to still her. Chloe was sorely tempted to just throw him the Hell off of her but she let him restrain this one last time. If she threw him across the floor, she'd probably be a lab by sunset. "Take it easy."

"I am taking it easy," she said trying again and grateful when he finally took the hint and let her stand up. She brushed the dust off of her denim skirt and the pants underneath them. "I'm fine, Lex, really. I was doing some extra research down here and I fell asleep."

"You've been passing out in odd places a lot lately. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Ship shape."

Lex narrowed his eyes at her. "It's ten AM and I know you have school."

She snorted. She just bet he had her schedule mapped out too. That kind of attention to detail was part and parcel of his obsessive streak. "I cut. It happens sometimes."

He smirked. "Clark cut once."

"Yeah we're all taking turns. Next year Pete's cutting and Lana gets senior year. Baby steps to anarchy."

"Funny you should mention that," proclaimed an annoying, nasal voice. "Anarchy must be something you're passingly familiar with, Miss Sullivan. I find it hard to understand how you snuck past the guard. What's your secret?"

Well there was a loaded question. Chloe glared at Dr. Walden and forcefully reminded herself not to activate her heat vision. She'd hated the man from the moment Lex had hired him, which was, ironically enough, her own damn fault. Walden was a brilliant cryptographer and archaeologist and she'd learn volumes from his work, but the man, himself, was an egomaniac. She understood now how the Kawatchee people had felt when Lionel had tried to destroy the caves. These were hers even moreso than theirs and she hated the way the arrogant prick treated them like his playground.

Like he fucking had the deed to them.

She'd never wanted to work with anyone on the paintings with the exception of some extensive review of the Kawatchees' oral history and legends. She trusted Dr. Willowbrook, although she'd never admitted that she had any powers to him, and he, in turn, respected her. Though she did get the feeling he was slightly disappointed that the prophesied savior of his people was a girl and not quite the Numan he'd been expecting.

Dr. Willowbrook understood the caves, loved and cared for them, treated them with the reverence he'd also reserved for his ancestors.

Walden just saw a means to an end and probably another book deal.

All this just made her want to flambe him all the more, even if it blew her undercover deal. Reigning in her anger, she replied, "Maybe Lex's security is a little lax. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened."

Lex chuckled at that. "She has a point. My father never had any taste in his bodyguards and I have less luck finding my own."

Walden was not appeased. He turned to glare at Lex. "And I can't believe you let a child down here at all. She shouldn't have unfettered access to the caves. There are protocols and standards and she'd going to hinder our progress."

"You progress has been intolerably slow, Dr. We wouldn't even know these caves were here if not for Chloe. If the two of you could put your egos aside and learn to work with one another, we might actually decipher something."

"I don't even take on graduate students and you think I'm going to cater to a girl in pigtails"

"To be fair, my hair's really too short for that bit." She riposted. "I'm not working with him either. Forget it. Dr. Willowbrook is fine but you, God, it's a shame that such a brilliant mind couldn't get paired with a sense of decency." She gave a slight glance at Lex out of the corner of her eye. "That seems to be a trend going around actually."

"Well, subtlety isn't your strong point today either, is it Chloe?" Lex asked. His tone amused but his shoulders tensed. Damn, she forgot how sensitive Lex could be. She was certainly on a roll with insulting the men in her life. Pete should run for it while he had a chance.

She sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. "Sorry...I, well, you know how I slept last night and I've been pretty vicious to everyone."

Lex brightened at that. "As long as I get equal treatment with Clark and Gabe I'll let it slide. So, are you heading home?"

"Well my exciting day of hookie can't get more intense and bad girlesque than ancient cave and sitting on my own sofa. Why?"

"Would you like to go for broke then in the truancy Olympics? Covert meetings with the local town Lothario perhaps."

She snorted. "When he gets here, let me know."

Walden was fuming at all of this. "Lex, you're seriously not going to do anything about this?"

Lex stalked over to the doctor and started heading for the caves' exit. "Find me something usable, doctor, and perhaps we can renegotiate the cave policies. Right now, you've been useless to me and I don't indulge failure for long. Chloe?"

"Coming. Too much dust is bad for my sinuses."

"I'll bet." Lex said in that same tired tone he used whenever she lied to him. For a few minutes, they said nothing as they both made their way to the entrance into the caves. Once they were standing in the work site parking lot, Lex started back in with the conversation. "So," he said, leaning against his car, a Mercedes today, maybe he was in a German kind of mood. "You cut school and then walked the five miles to the caves and you did it all in the first two hours. Color me impressed."

"You know that part about me and no sleep?"

"So I've heard." He drawled. "Is this a no questions kind of day?"

"Aren't they all?"

"I was serious, you know, about the invitation back to the mansion. I wanted to talk to you."

"Look, about the last twelve hours. I might have developed some odd narcoleptic tendencies, but I'm fine, really."

"Gabe looked terrible this morning." Lex added, opening the door to the passenger side of his car.

"He wasn't thrilled to have me come in at five AM." She said, sliding into the seat. Since Clark wasn't here to deck him for her, it was either accept the offer or, well, accept the offer. She knew Lex and he wasn't in the mood for another run around. Besides with the headache and nausea she was still suffering from, superspeeding was the last thing she wanted to do.

"I can always take you to the office if you'd prefer or, if you'd like, I can insist your dad take the day off with pay, of course."

Oh the advantages of being friends with her dad's boss. "Thanks, that's sweet, but I don't think he's gotten less mad in the last five hours."

"Then I can still take you home. Perhaps the local white knight will cut school again for you this year."

She looked down at her hands and started picking at her cuticles. "Clark and I aren't quite on speaking terms right now."

"Jealousy?"

She snorted. "You are over impressed with yourself today. No, he wants to talk. He's very good with all that Dr. Phil stuff."

Lex smirked at that as he gunned his engine. "He's the only sixteen year old boy I've ever met who reads pop psych books voluntarily."

"Well, you know, reporter. Everything has an answer if you research long enough."

"I've always believed that as well. So he wants to talk and-"

"I'm not in a share my feelings kind of mood lately, or, more accurately I was this morning and he and my dad didn't really like what I had to say."

Lex nodded thoughtfully at that. "So is this one of those times when you need off your pedestal, Chloe?"

She closed her eyes and sighed. The smart thing for her to do would be to get him to drop her off at her house or even somewhere neutral like The Talon and then speed home from there. Something weird (even by her standards) had just happened to her and she was beyond tired. It would be very easy for Lex to get what he wanted from her. And yet, she really didn't want to do that. The idea of moping in an empty house didn't appeal to her, not that it would be that empty. Clark and Pete were going to cut school to see her just as sure as she could bench press her dad's Nissan. And that thought appealed to her even less.

She wanted to be able to talk with someone without all this pressure crushing down on her and, ironically enough, right now she could deal with the familiar pressure of keeping up pretenses a lot better than she could the pressure of trying to be everything her friends and her father needed her to be.

Finally opening her eyes, she leaned back in the comfortable leather seat and looked back at him. "Yeah, it is."

Clark, who had fallen in love with Lex's video game and Warrior Angel collections, spent far more time at the mansion than she did. It was probably better that way. Lex and Clark got to do all the guy stuff together and her dad got to continue not having a coronary at the thought of her and Lex alone having tete-a-tetes. Still, though, it amused how excited Clark sometimes was coming back from the mansion. He was always easily impressed with whatever collectible Lex had acquired. She found it kind of odd that he got so worked up still over the comic when he clearly had the real thing at home. Still, the fanboy leanings were cute in both men.

On her good humored days and on those scarce days where Lex relaxed with her and didn't push, she wondered if maybe she'd misjudged him. Considering what a dork he was underneath it all, maybe he wouldn't turn in at all. He might just ask her to step kindly into his shrine to superheroes and strike a pose.

At either rate, Chloe visited the mansion much less frequently and when she did, unlike Clark, she did not spend her time in the game room or the theater. Instead, she preferred to talk with Lex in his office. Part of it was that she could only get so comfortable on his high-backed sofa. It was much easier to remember that what they had was much more of a business agreement than a friendship there. Okay, well not quite a business arrangement either, but she doubted a lot of other friends had negotiated rules before they'd agreed to hang out together either. The other reason she preferred his office was that it was conducive to long talks. When Lex gave interviews-and after that disaster with Carrie Castle he rarely did-he gave them in here.

Sometimes the reporter in her liked to pretend she was getting the inside scoop with the young scion. Besides, she really couldn't see Brenda Star sitting down pool side with Bill Gates.

Best to keep it a little more proper than that.

Currently, she was sitting on the sofa, watching Lex stoke the fire. The castle had old wood-burning fire places and it always amused her that Lex himself insisted on getting the fires started. Old stone Scottish castles were cold under the best of circumstances and downright freezing in the middle of a Kansas winter (or so Clark had complained often enough). She was never more thankful for her immunity to temperature changes than while waiting for Lex to start his fires.

He'd make a shitty Boy Scout, that was certain.

Rubbing her arms and putting a little extra effort into some fake teeth chattering (pretending to be human was a full time job in and of itself), Chloe took a sip of her coffee. "You know, I'm sure Enrique could fix this right up for us."

"Almost got it."

"Uh-huh," She said.

"No, really, and hey!" He said, standing up and brushing off his pants. "Look at that." He settled back onto the chair opposite her and smiled, a real genuine toothy smile that she'd seen him give on days when new cars got delivered to his garage.

He was very proud of himself. Maybe it was nice to know he had mastered what cavemen could do. She might have been more impressed if it hadn't taken twenty minutes and if she couldn't have done the same thing with just a glance.

Still, she was feeling rather generous (hot coffee had helped her mood tremendously) so she smiled back. "Do you want a standing ovation or should I send out for some confetti?"

Okay, mostly generous.

"You know, I only let you and Clark talk to me like that."

"Well we can't all be yes men and sycophants." She said, sighing and staring back at the fire.

"Do you want to just watch the flickering flames? I've found it soothing myself. They were the first form of entertainment, after all, back when our ancestors were cowering on the planes."

His ancestors. Who the Hell knew what hers had done and that was the crux of the whole situation, wasn't it? "We can talk if you want. I don't mind."

"I assume you being on Route 8 or in the caves or the fight with Clark and your father are not topics open for discussion."

"This place wouldn't be very haven-y if you started harping on all those sore points now." She said, taking another sip of her coffee.

He sighed. "I didn't want to talk about them anyway."

She arched an incredulous eyebrow at that. "You don't?"

"Fine then, it's all peaked my interest quite a bit but I'd rather have the pleasure of your company than drive you off. I can always come back to it."

And she knew he would. Lex was patient enough to drop things, even if he was always thinking quietly to himself, pondering all the angles and inconsistencies. However, he always brought his questions back up. He'd been hinting and prodding (a lot less suavely than he thought) about the car accident on an almost weekly basis since it happened. She never gave a satisfactory answer, never gave him more, and he never stopped chipping away at it. For his sake, she hoped he moved back to Metropolis soon because her mysteries would probably drive him crazy if he didn't.

Maybe if Clark had been the alien, he'd have gotten more by now, but she was far more discreet than that.

Except for days when her biology betrayed her, like this morning on the highway.

"I can accept that." She said, watching the flames and imagining that she could feel their heat. "What do you want to talk about? How's crap processing these days?"

"Very well. We have new and excitement advancements all the time."

"I know." She said, giving a slight smile. "Daddy brings his work home with him. He gets so excited over all the little things. He's really looking forward to the fertilizer trade show this year. It's a little weird."

"Gabe's definitely my most enthusiastic employee." Lex agreed, sipping on one of those pricey bottles of water he so favored. "But I wanted to actually discuss the caves with you."

"I'm not working with Walden. Besides, Lex, I'm not cryptographer. I'm a decent hacker but I can't crack codes or anything."

"I think you're selling yourself short."

She shook her head. "I can't read it. It would be amazing if I magically figured it out or something but even the Kawatchee have no clue what it says."

Lex nodded. "I believe that you don't, but I know you have access to things I don't."

"Well Dr. Willowbrook would work with you if he were sure that Walden wasn't about to rape and pillage the caves."

"I'm not interested in Willowbrook's work. I know the legends. I've heard all the variations his tribe and their sister tribes throughout Kansas have to offer. The answer isn't there."

"Then where is it?" She asked, intrigued.

"So you would like to partner with me on this?"

She paused for a second worrying her bottom lip and when she answered, her reply even surprised her. "I really do."

It baffled her sometimes how she sought Lex out, especially considering how dangerous he could be to her. It had all started when she'd needed him to get to Whitney and she still wasn't sure she done the right thing then. Considering the way that deed kept her up nights, she probably hadn't. But whenever the doubts crept in the worst, she thought back to coming to a stop in the center of that cornfield, of seeing Clark unconscious on the cross, of thinking for that one agonizing moment that he'd died, and she wasn't sorry at all that Whitney was now the manager of Fordman's.

She shouldn't be entertaining the idea of working with Lex on the caves, but he was the only person in her life who wanted to know their secrets at all, and she suspected he wanted to know all they held even worse than she did.

Everyone else in her life cherished ignorance while he craved knowledge like a drug.

She knew the feeling.

Lex smiled at her and it was that predatory look he was giving her now. She stared back, her chin held high, refusing to shrink from his gaze. "Excellent." He said, standing up and stepping over to his book shelf. He rustled through his collection until he pulled a worn paperback from his collection. When he returned to his seat, he tossed his find to her.

Chloe feigned missing the throw and grumbled as she picked it up off the floor. "Von Daniken? Are you serious?"

The intensity of Lex's gaze never diminished. "Deadly."

"Lex..."

"I assume someone with such an extensive interest in the bizarre has read his work."

She nodded. She'd read his theory back when she'd just been a middle school student at Metropolis Junior High. Ironically, she'd laughed her ass off at how far fetched his whole argument was and concluded that the drugs in the 1970s must have been fantastic to inspire such crap. After she'd seen her ship, she dusted off her old copy and reread it and again after she'd found the caves. But she couldn't let Lex think she believed in that stuff, even if she were living proof of it, especially because she was living proof of it.

Affecting her best scornful tone, she laughed and rolled her eyes. "Come on, this stuff makes Scientology look like rocket science. It's not real."

"You chase mutant frogs, fat-sucking vampires, and werewolves for a living. You're going to be a skeptic now?"

She bristled a little at his allusion to Kyle but continued on with her argument. "But I don't follow UFO stories."

"You used to. The Torch wall used to have the standard crop circle rumors and blurry photos. Clark let that slip once."

"Yeah, but I took them down because I realized how stupid believing in aliens is. There's nobody out there, Lex, and, honestly, if there were why would they come here? If you were smart enough for faster than light speed travel why would you hang out with a bunch of primitives? It's like one of us sitting down for a nice chat with a guinea pig."

For the record, she didn't think that way about humans at all, and maybe her people didn't either. Still, she'd never believed in all that _Fire in the Sky _abduction nonsense or in crop circles. It seemed even more pointless to travel all this way just to torture people and ruin their land.

"And scientists spend their entire careers studying everything from ants to elephants. Maybe they're merely curious."

That statement made it harder for her to swallow. Her father's paranoia had not been sitting well with her, and she'd actually spent her few hours in bed this morning wondering if she really was some sort of experiment. If they'd sent her here to learn. Maybe her insatiable curiosity was an alien thing and not just a wanting to be a reporter thing. As stupid as it was, she'd decided to become a reporter because Moira had been one and her only really happy memories were of watching her work on articles for the Journal. On the trail of a juicy story was the only time she'd ever seen Moira smile.

Maybe, though, she'd been sent here to study human nature.

"Maybe." she finally croaked out. "But maybe little green men aren't actually real."

Lex shook his head. "I expected better of you than that, Chloe. I thought you were as fallen away as I was. Don't tell me you've bought into the 'in His image' party line."

Well, if there were a God, she was going to be dollars to donuts that _she _really didn't fall under his jurisdiction, although, oddly enough, knowing what she was hadn't stopped her from attending Mass. "No, I'm not going to go all Creationism on you."

"Then follow the logic. I know science is more Clark's and my beat, but you have a fantastic analytical mind all the same."

"Thanks." She riposted, rolling her eyes.

"Statement of fact, not a compliment." He said simply. "Here's my point, there are millions of galaxies all with millions of stars and countless planets. In all that infinite combination of atoms and elements, our lone planet was the only one that sprung life. If it happened once, it happened again, the law of averages assures us of that."

Well, it had happened at least one other place and, oddly enough, they looked the same. Maybe the universe was working off of a limited design. She sighed. "I know. I agree with the logic, but I still don't think they've been here. What? So they just hung out with the locals and made some cave paintings?"

"So you did see the connection with the caves, then?"

"It's Kawatchee."

"No, it's not and you know it isn't or you never would have started reading Walden's research to begin with."

"Walden doesn't see little green men either."

"No but he is an expert on mysteries commonalities in ancient languages. I've been pouring over the research for over a month now. The symbols in the caves, they're not just from Kansas. They've been found in China, Mexico, and Egypt as well, and they're all in the same time frame. One common language in four of the most disparate cultures on Earth, two of which have no recorded writing system. Someone had to bring it there and someone with advanced transportation at the very least."

Chloe took several deep breaths. Her heart was racing. She'd been focusing so hard on trying to translate the symbols and, more recently, on just trying to survive daily life in Smallville, that she hadn't come across the resources he had yet. She assumed that whatever her ancestors had done was limited to mingling with the Kawatchee people. The thought that they'd been all over, been here for thousands of years, maybe she really wasn't the only one here.

"What?"

"They've been here before and the caves are the key to finding out what they wanted."

"Wouldn't that be nice." She mumbled to herself and then clamped her mouth shut when his head snapped back toward her.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, just never mind." He frowned and narrowed his eyes at her and she knew he'd be filing that comment away in his later archives. Pulling even harder at her cuticles, wincing a little in discomfort, she struggled for a way to steer the conversation back to nice normal Earthly topics, but what she finally settled on did anything but, "Why do you think they did it? Why would they come here and just leave again."

She shouldn't, god she shouldn't, but she just wanted anyone to answer her questions and Lex had found more than she had and together...

He leaned forward and stared at her. His eyes roving over her with an intensity that was anything but sexual. "Who said they left?"

She did the only thing she could think of to damp down his suspicion.

She laughed.

Great peals of laughter poured from her throat and she doubled over with the effort. It hadn't been hard, really. She was stressed beyond her limits and it was a better relief than she could have hoped for. "God, you had me going for a second." She giggled again, throwing her head back as she did it. "Aliens and the Ancient Egyptians. Maybe they built the pyramids. Hey, I know, maybe the ones that are still around are hanging out in Vegas. Aren't aliens supposed to have abducted Elvis or something anyway? Why not take in an impersonator show or two."

To his credit, Lex's composure never wavered. "Maybe it's absurd, or maybe I'm right, maybe there are a few of them here right now and what they do is observe us. Report on us." He said, stretching out the word "report" and giving her his hungry lion's grin.

"And maybe Von Daniken had a really large toke of something." She said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "You were right. I feel much better after we talked. I haven't laughed this hard since Pete perfected his Principal Reynolds impression."

"Happy to be of service." He said, sourly, taking a sip of his water. "Since I've already proved so amusing for you, let me bounce off one more idea."

"What? Is this about anal probes?" She snerked at that. That one was obviously fake. There was no way anyone related her had ever had that as a top priority.

"Base, Sullivan."

"I didn't start that rumor."

"True enough." He said, leaning in close to her. "You asked why they'd come here and just disappear for thousands of years after that. Maybe they were laying the ground work for something."

"For what?"

"Maybe not colonization, despite what the Kawatchee legend says. Maybe this is a just in case."

"In case what?"

"They need somewhere to go." He shrugged. "An insurance policy on an inhabitable world would be a shrewd move. Making the people already there believe you were gods in the process is even shrewder. Think about it."

And that was why she sought him out. Neither she or even her father, after fourteen years of worrying, had ever entertained the idea that Earth was her peoples' fall back plan. Maybe that was something only CEOs would have picked up on, that crucial need for a plan B.

So did that make her a lucky participant in plan B or someone still here to scope out Earth and make nice with the locals? What? Was she supposed to start a cult of her own?

"I will." She said, her tone somber.

"You know, Chloe, I think you bluster a lot, but you don't seem quite as incredulous now."

"Curator of the Wall of Weird, right?" She held out her hand to him. Her father was going to kill. Well fuck him. He wasn't going to know. The stupid key had been a bust and she was running out of options to try and find her answers.

Like often seemed to be the case, Lex was her solution.

Lex leaned forward and took her hand, shaking it firmly. "So partners then."

"Deal."

"I trust Clark won't be making three on this? He's so reluctant to talk about the caves when I bring them up."

She shook her head. "You wanted my trust. Well you have it as far as this goes. You get this side of me, the side that has to know, no matter what."

Lex nodded and stood up, making his way over to the refreshment cart to refill her coffee. When he spoke, it seemed oddly off topic. "Have you ever read Plato?"

She blanched at that. "Huh?"

"Plato," he said, pouring her coffee. "Have you read him?"

She nodded. "A very, very little. I was doing some research on Atlantis-I still think it's fake by the way-and I did try reading the original story. He might have broken my brain."

Lex laughed and despite the stress of the day and the adrenaline (or whatever she had) still flooding her body, his rich laughter made something warm flicker once again in her stomach.

Luthors were nothing if not charming.

"He tends to do that." He said, handing her her fresh cup and sitting down again. "There's this parable of the caves. I assume you haven't heard it."

She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her blessed coffee. Looking back at him she added, "Not so much."

"You know," He added conversationally. "Most people blow on steaming coffee."

"Oh, you know how it is. You burn your tongue enough and it doesn't even faze you anymore."

"So I see." He said, defaulting to his bitter expression. "Anyway, the story is basically this. There are a group of prisoners chained to a cave. They've been chained there their entire lives, all they've ever seen are the shadows on the cave walls, the pale reflections of what has been happening in the light behind them. All they hear are echoes, all they know is muddled and confused and second hand. But one the prisoners is let loose, ushered out into the light and he finally knows that what he thought was reality all this time was merely an illusion. Can you imagine a paradigm shift like that?"

Actually she could. "It must have been scary."

"But it's not, not for him. He wants to share the light with the others, so he goes back into the cave. He knows what they don't and he wants to lead them."

"I can't imagine wanting to do anything, much less impart touchy-feely new age wisdom if you found out everything you knew was a lie." Her voice, despite her best efforts, was speeding up the way it always did when she got upset.

"But he has the knowledge then and compared to those ignorant men in the cave that gives him the right to rule."

"So you're going to bring the light right into the caves and take the knowledge for yourself? Think they left up the plans for our very own Death Star? That would be kind of neat."

"Cute, Miss Sullivan, very cute. But, of course, I want to know the truth. I want the knowledge for knowledge's sake, but I also want the power."

She shivered. The way he spoke made her remember how dangerous Lex really was, why he'd earned the right to be the Segeeth to her Numan.

Well, it's not like he'd get anything out of her. Maybe it was better if they did work on it all together so she'd be able to keep him chained to that wall for the rest of his life.

"I see." She said, her voice strained. "Do you think it's worth it? Finding out your world isn't real? That everything you thought was wrong?"

"If it gives you the resources you need to be in control, why wouldn't you suffer through it?"

"I don't know." She answered softly.

"Now that you've made the bargain, you're afraid of what we'll find, aren't you?"

"Until right now I never thought it might be bad."

"Never considered the thought that it had the power to make you a god."

"I don't think the parable implies that. I read the Atlantis one. He's all about responsibility and true justice and caution. The man who goes back into the cave has a responsibility to the others, assuming he doesn't just find more comfort in the dark and goes back to his chains."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Want to be in the dark? Despite the take-no-prisoners reporter's bravado of yours, are you really afraid of the truth?"

Yes, she was.

But she was afraid of never knowing it more.

"I need the truth."

"Even if there's no comfort in it?"

She rubbed her arms, remembering a long night spent on the floor of her basement staring at her ship, at the proof she did really belong here. "There rarely is."

He nodded. "I know." And he looked away then, towards his desk and the small framed photo of his mother that still sat there. She had her tells and Lex had his, no matter how hard he tried to deny them. Something had happened with his mother, some uncomfortable shattering truth, but that was a story for another time. Rubbing his hands together, he pulled a file from off the table and handed it to her. "Would you like to start now?"

"Why not? I'm avoiding home, remember?"

"You know," he added, taking on the slightly condescending older brother tone he always used with Clark, "You really should try talking to him."

"I will and I appreciate the concern, just not right now."

"I was merely trying to help."

"I know," She said, sighing and opening up the folder. When she stared down at the etched symbols that had surrounded the key hole, she gasped.

Alarmed, Lex put a steadying hand on her wrist. "Are you alright."

"Um, yeah, I...I gotta go."

"I don't understand."

Well if it worked once...

She wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. "It's a...well, I'd rather not talk about it in mixed company. Lana was trying to help me with it earlier but you know..."

Lex nodded and stood up, walking over to his phone on the desk. "Understood. If you just give me a second I can have one of my driver take you home as quickly as possible."

"That would be great, but could you just go see if you have some aspirin or something right now. Just something fast?"

"Of course," He said, hurrying out the door without a second thought.

Chloe snorted to herself. Apparently Clark and Lex both shared the same antiquated sense of chivalry, and that superceded even Lex's normally suspicious nature. All the better for her then. Taking a deep breath, she picked the dropped photo off the floor and stared at it one more time.

She drew in a sharp breath.

It hadn't been a trick of her over tired mind after all.

She could read the language now.


	5. Chapter 5

**5**

Being able to finally read the language had proven to be a complete bust or mostly one. She'd blurred back to the caves the minute Lex's driver was out of sight. Much to her disappointment, the writing on the cave walls were literal translations of the original Numan and Segeeth tales. There was one sample of writing, written oddly enough in opposing concentric circles, that did not talk about the legendary enemies. Instead, it detailed the pattern that had to be pressed in order to open up a hidden altar in the caves. The wall didn't say what the altar was for but it was enough proof that her ancestors had left more than the cave paintings behind. Unfortunately in order for that to work, she needed the key and she'd been able to find it since she'd woken up on the cave floor. She feared that the stupid thing had disintegrated, and she was beginning to be very pissed off with her parents or engineers or whoever for sending her to Earth with such shoddy technology.

After an hour of searching the cave with no luck, she'd run back home. When she slipped into her living room, she found Clark waiting for her.

"I've been here for over two hours, Chlo." He said, his tone hurt and not accusatory.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her choppy bangs. "I know."

"I cut school again because Pete and I flipped for it and I won. My parents are going to kill me, and I was okay with that because I knew something big was going on with you and I wanted to help. But you shut me out again." He said, coming to stand in front of her.

Clark was actually a very big guy and she didn't to forget that. He was naturally clumsy and painfully shy and tended to slouch low in the halls. Right now, though, he was neither shy nor uncertain, and he stood to his full height. Despite her strength, she didn't like the feeling of being crowded by him. It was almost like he was in control.

"I know," She said, brushing past him and settling down on the sofa. He followed suit and, much to her pleasure, their heights were much more even on the old cushions. "I'm sorry."

"It was the key, wasn't it? You were lying to me and Pete when you said it was, um, other stuff." And despite himself, Clark blushed at even the thought of the "other stuff."

"Yeah, it was giving out this really shrill ring and it hurt too much to concentrate."

He nodded and frowned at her, that ever present concern filling his eyes. "Did you put it in the cave wall?"

"Of course not." She lied. "I did come home and grab a hold of it for a while. Once I touched it the ringing stopped and it hasn't come back. That, at least, was more or less true.

"Then why weren't you here when I got here?"

"Lex came by. He offered to take me to the mansion and I thought it would be more suspicious if I turned him down."

"So he knew you'd be home at ten on a school day?" Clark asked, his tone incredulous.  
>"He is Lex and he's been obsessed with me since he arrived in this town. Is it that odd to think that he has someone on my school comings and goings, really?"<p>

Clark shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Still, you didn't have to go with him. You could have just said you were sick and he'd have let it go."

She grinned at him. "All men let 'other things' go, huh?"

"They seem to." He said, still blushing. "Chlo, I like Lex. I like hanging out with him and I kind of owe him because I might never have figured out how I really felt about you without his nudging."

"Jeez, then Lex deserves a lifetime supply of Godiva or something from me, doesn't he?"

"However, you know he's dangerous to you, and you know he has to be even more suspicious than usual after last night."

She smiled earnestly back at him and snuggled closer to him, letting her head come to rest on his chest. Relaxing even further when he began to stroke her hair, she added, "I know, but I thought it was more important to talk with him now and see what more things he suspected. I don't know. Isn't it better to start diffusing now than to let him start making connections. It's not safe to let him run wild with his theories because I think he's getting close to the truth." And judging from the way he'd looked at her while discussing Von Daniken and visitors from the stars, she was almost certain he'd at least entertained the notion that she wasn't human.

That was a scary thought. Because if he suspected it, it would only be a matter of time before he found a way to prove it.

Sensing her discomfort, Clark squeezed her shoulder. "Your dad and I aren't going to let anything happen to you."

And that would be a lot more comforting if her only three allies weren't two high school sophomores, one of whom with myopia and severe asthma and the other about five inches shy of average height, and a middle-aged crap factory manager with thinning hair and a bad back. They didn't seem to stack up so well against billionaire (and mutant) with almost unlimited resources. Still, she appreciated that Clark was trying and that he, like Pete and her dad, would fight to the death to keep her out of a lab.

That meant a lot, actually.

"I know. It's just so hard." And it was. There were things she needed that only Lex could give her. Even if she could read the language, she hadn't learned anything important enough and Lex had the files from the other archaeological sites. Maybe there was more information about her people there. Besides, even if he wanted to study the language for less than lofty reasons, he still **wanted **to study it. It was more than the other men in her life wanted. She needed to know, and she wished her family understood that.

"Chlo?" Clark asked, stilling his hand. "You sort of trailed off on me there."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. You've had a long day and it's barely noon."

"No, I'm not sorry like that. I mean, I'm sorry about this morning. I sort of used my powers against you."

He chuckled. "Not really. I mean, I don't have any broken bones and no one threw me into a wall or anything, so I must be fine, you know?"

"But I ran off on you, and that wasn't fair to shut you out like that."

Beneath her, she could feel him shrug. "And it's not the most devastating thing in the world either. Humans have fights all the times and, or so I've seen on TV, the girlfriend slams her bedroom door and stuff in the guy's face. The blurring's like a more extreme version."

"TV, huh? First the Brady Bunch and now random allusions. Your brain is being rotted, Clark."

"Not so much. I've still got my head in astronomy journals."

"Do you now?" She asked, arching an eyebrow at him and sitting up enough to give him a peck on the lips."

"Totally. I'm working really hard on this paper on intergalactic travelers' and their inexplicable addiction to coffee. It's going to get me the Nobel, I'm sure."

"Well, my article on idiot boyfriends is going to get me the Pulitzer so we're even." She said, laughing and kissing him again.

He frowned after she pulled back. "You don't really think I'm an idiot, do you?"

Actually, quite the opposite. Clark was too intuitive for his own good and far too talented at seeing through her. She didn't believe her lies would stand up well once he had time to actually think them over, but at least it bought her a few hours to soften the blow before her (metaphorically) killed her. "Of course not. Did I mention I was also sorry for what I said?"

He shook his head and waited for her to resume her position against his chest. Wrapping his arm around her, he added, "No you're not. This is how you feel. Finding out who you are is important to you. I know how you feel, Chlo, believe me. I've wanted to track down my parents for years. I've never told mom and dad about it because I don't want to hurt their feelings, but I already plan to start signing the paperwork and everything after I turn 18. Lana's the same way with going over her mom's old things. Everyone wants to know where they come from."

"Some days, I'd settle for just **what **I am."

"Silly." He chided, kissing the top of her head. "I already told you that. You're my Chloe."

"And I already said that I don't stand for sexist labels, especially considering 'your Chloe' could drop kick you into next week."

"But you wouldn't," He said, confidently. "Besides you know you like it."

She smiled despite herself. No matter her Gloria Steinem leanings, she liked that Clark thought of her as his girl. She felt so lucky that any normal boy would love her at all and the fact that it was Clark, whom she'd been in love with since her first day at Smallville Junior High, was still more unbelievable than all that she could do. "Maybe. Still, I shouldn't have been as mean as I was."

"You probably shouldn't have. Your dad was really upset after you left. He didn't say anything because, you know, manly men don't share, but he was scary-quiet until he went to wake you back up."

She nodded against his chest. "I know. I said those things because I was angry and I wanted to hurt. I couldn't possibly love anyone more than I love him. Everyone else-whoever sent me here, Moira-they gave up on me and he stayed. He'll be my family first even if I find out I have eight cousins, six aunts and uncles, a dog, and parents in hiding in Granville or something. I'd never leave home, Clark. Never."

"Am I part of that?"

She nodded even more fervently. "Pete and you, especially. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just looking for answers."

"And I know you need to but I'm so worried you'll get hurt."

"Invulnerable. It's kind of hard to hurt me."

He sighed and squeezed her tighter. "That's not what I meant."

"It's not?"

"No. I'm worried about what you find. I'm not as naïve as you want me to be. I've thought about what happens if I find my birth parents a lot. You saw what happened with Lana. Eventually Henry Small just got tired of her, like a puppy or something."

"Jerk."

"Well, he did sort of carry on with a married woman but so not the point. I mean, what if my real parents were drug addicts or criminals or something. It doesn't make them evil people, not by any means, but-"

"It's not what you hoped for."

"Exactly. What if your parents turned out to be cruel or people who didn't care about you at all?"

She barked out a nervous, self-deprecating laugh. "And what if they turn out to be giant squid?"

He poked her as hard as he dared in the ribs, and she moved with him to soften the blow. "Not that, Chlo. I don't believe in any of that. You're the most human person I know."

"Except for the deafening irony that I'm not."  
>"And notice the total lack of caring. It isn't about finding out Kang and Kodos are your family. It's about being disappointed by who you do find. It's about having all the answers and hating them."<p>

She sighed and snuggled closer. "I know and I've thought about that, but I can't not know because it's killing me. I can't stand the uncertainty, Clark. I can't."

"I was kind of afraid of that. Chlo, if this is what you want, then we'll talk again to your dad and to Pete. I mean, obviously, you can go ahead without Gabe's say so, but I know you want him behind you in this."

"Thanks, I appreciate the support."

He shrugged. "It's kind of in my job description. One more thing."

"You didn't snag my homework assignments that I missed while playing hookie, did you?"

"Hardly."

"Then what."

Clark shifted under her again, this time moving away from her and forcing her back up into a sitting position. Okay, so she let him do it since, normally, he'd have had a better chance of rerouting the Panama Canal than moving her. He stared down at her with such serious eyes. It figured. Except for the parasite, she'd never seen Clark look anything other than earnest. "I'm not in denial."

She furrowed her brows in confusion. "About what now?"

"What you said ridiculously early this morning. I'm not in denial about who you are."

"What." She corrected bitterly.

"No, **who **you are." He said, pushing a choppy bang back behind her ear. "I know you're not technically human—"

"At all actually." She snarked.

"Damn it, Chlo. I'm trying to be sincere here." He said, sighing. "That snark is the most deadly superpower you have, way worse than the heat vision, that's for sure."

"Probably," she added, sniffling despite herself.

"As I was saying," He said, placing his other hand under her chin. "I don't pretend anything with you and I want you to be who you are, all of who you are. It's why I try all the time to get you to open up about the few memories you do have or help you with your powers. I just need you to believe that."

"I do." She said, nodding. "I really do. I just…I went for the jugular with everyone this morning."

"Don't do it again, please."

"I won't," She replied as he leaned into kiss her. "So," she mused, when he finally pulled back for air. "My dad won't be home for quite a while, although I suspect that Lex will so be giving him a half day. Do you want to help me work on that floating thing?"

He smirked back at her as he adjusted his crooked glasses. "I'd love to."

"You know, when I ask people to help me open The Torch early, is it too much to hope for that they'd actually show up on time?" Chloe ranted as she kept pace with Lana. The other girl, despite being burdened down with a case of brand new art supplies, was walking at a surprisingly brisk pace for a human. If Chloe'd been normal, she had a sinking suspicion she'd have been winded by their little trot.

Lana sighed. "Clark's not much of a morning person. He never has been. I swear, he was late to kindergarten like every day."

"But he's a farmboy. I thought those roosters were all up an at 'em at five A.M. or some other ridiculous hour."

"Oh, they are. Trust me. We could hear the Kents' rooster from my old house every morning." Lana snorted. "Even if Clark wasn't a morning person, I grew into the habit."

"Obviously." Chloe remarked. "So that's at least got to be a fringe benefit of living with Pete and his family. They're totally civilized, nary a feathered alarm clock in sight."

"Yeah, but there's Pete and his parents and still two older brothers who live in the house. Using the bathroom in the morning is such a free-for-all, and I need some time for this make-up job."

Chloe rolled her eyes indulgently. Lana was still a work in progress and while she was tolerable and surprisingly snarky when she wanted to be, she still tended to the egocentric side now and then. Oh well, they all had their flaws. She'd been told more than once that she was abrasive. Imagine that. "Good thing he doesn't have sisters then." She added, as she and Lana passed through the senior parking lot and started to near the side of the gym. "So how are things with you and Pete going anyway?"

Lana sighed and shifted a drawing pad over in her box. "We're not. I like him, he likes me, but he's deathly afraid of the judge and, I think, of Aunt Nell, too. He doesn't want to make a move at all for fear we'll get caught."

"Isn't that why you have The Talon in the first place?"

"First, I don't have The Talon. Mrs. Kent owns stock in it after she pitched the idea of converting into a coffee shop and old theater to Lex. She'd seen all my old memorabilia when she and Clark helped me clean out Nell's garage and she thought what a great idea it would be and how it could crush The Beanery, which it did."

"Yeah, that's true, but she let's you manage a lot of the day-to-day stuff. All the marquee posters are yours and you pick the art house themes for the movies."

"And she bakes the pies that keep people coming and manages the books like a whiz. If it were just me, the place would have folded in a week. However, as much as I wish Pete and I could just sneak a quick make-out session in the back of the theater, he's still gun shy." She shook her head and cursed under her breath. "I bet Nell threatened him with castration or something before she left town. I wouldn't put it above her especially since Pete's the wrong sort-you know, not a quarterback."

Chloe sighed. Pete Ross was many things, charming was chief among them, but he was possibly the worst football player Chloe had ever seen. It was weird, actually, she'd seen him shoot one-on-one with Clark and he was a decent basketball player. He just had zero coordination on the turf. However, that seemed like a skill with an expiration date. With the way he caroused and schmoozed, the way he'd masterminded Paul Chan's bid for president, Chloe suspected that he'd be a pretty powerful politician some day. Nell might not approve now but, somehow, Chloe couldn't help but think that if Lana stuck with Pete, she could end up first lady some day.

Not that it mattered much.

The other girl was genuinely taken with the young Mr. Ross.

It was obvious. With Whitney it had been all about doing the "right" girlfriend things: the kiss on the cheek before practice, helping "edit" papers which was really code for write them, cheering loudly in a mini-skirt. With Pete it was all about the way she looked at him or always (and sometimes annoyingly) managed to steer the conversation back to him. All in all, it was still a massive improvement over her self-aggrandizing conversations during her pom-pom phase.  
>"Well Nell's still an idiot." Clark said, rushing across the pavement to catch up with them.<p>

Pete was trailing behind him and struggling to keep up. While he was fast and conditioned from football, Clark still could take one step for three of his. "Damn it, man, give a guy a break here. I swear since all that stupid fencing, you've turned into a friggin' gazelle."

"Pretty much." Chloe agreed as both boys came to a slightly sweaty and panting stop next to her.

Lana rolled her eyes and shoved the box at Clark. Answering his earlier statement with, "Yes and the sky is blue, Clark. We already knew that one. You're late and this was heavy."

"Hey! Why do I have to carry the heavy stuff? You're all athletic with the riding and gymnastics and I can barely breathe sometimes." He complained while still shoving the box under his arm.

"Chivalry, Clark. Us weak, meek little girls just can't survive without you." Chloe said, donning a truly horrendous Scarlett O'Hara accent and batting her eyes at him.

Clark snorted and then leaned down to whisper into her ear. "You can lift my family's tractor. How come you aren't carrying the box again?"

She grinned and patted his shoulder. "I'm a delicate flower."

"Hardly." Lana said, smirking back at her. "Anyway, I appreciate the help. I've dragged that box from my car and I can't feel my arms anymore. Furthermore-"

And that was when Chloe's goal to have a mostly normal (for her) day got shot completely to Hell. Suddenly, her eyes began to burn hotter than they ever had before. It was so much worse than when she accidentally burned down the gym in eighth grade Bending over, she wrapped her arms around her waist again and moaned. She didn't even need to have her eyes open to know that Pete and Clark were yet again exchanging the _look _.

"Ah, Lana, how about we go and try to jimmie open the nurse's office or something." He said to his would-be girlfriend.

"But she's sick now and I think I have something in my backpack which," there was a fumbling around and the swaying of fabric then. "Damn, I left my backpack in my car. Come on, Pete. We can get a quick Advil run in right now."

"Sure," Pete said. "Clark, you got her?"

"Yeah," And as she listened, two sets of sneakers pounded hard against the asphalt and one pair of strong hands came to rest on her shoulders. "Chlo, is it the key again?"

"No, I…" She screamed bending over again. "My heat vision. I…oh God, I can't control it." She said, standing back up and opening her eyes. "Clark, duck!" Then it streamed out of her and it wasn't like any other time she'd ever done it. Usually, there was a release from it, a sense of the heat leveling off and leaving her body, but now it just continued to build, so hot, she thought even she'd turn to ash. She couldn't see either. Usually her vision tinted everything in a russet haze but her sight stayed as acute as always. Right now it was like she was seeing two different images at once and everything was disorienting and dizzying.

Finally, after an interminable stretch, her heat vision abated and she was able to blink again, to focus her eyesight. When she stared back at the wall of the gym, she gasped. In front of her was one of the sigils from the cave, scorched into the wall in all its twenty feet glory. If conspiracy buffs loved crop circles, they were going to love this. "My God."

Clark was back on his feet from where she'd shoved him down (she had a habit of doing that in a panic). His right eye glass was scratched and she felt insanely guilty about that right now, instead of for touching that stupid key in the first place. It had seemed so bad when all she could do was read old symbols, but she couldn't afford to have her powers going wonky. If she hadn't been as quick as she was, Clark might have been seriously burned.  
>"Chlo, what did you do?" He asked hesitantly, backing away from the heat of the flames.<p>

"I…I didn't mean to." She said. "God we've got to get it out."

"There's a hose around the side of the building. The coach likes to make players drink out of it as like a hazing thing." Clark supplied, giving a quick glance to the side. "Go."

It was all she needed. She was back in a millisecond, spraying the fire down until large clouds of smoke and steam billowed forth and the blackened side of the gym was all she could see. With the flames out, the sigil was even more apparent, even Clark had noticed.

"Oh crap."

Clark frowned at the symbol and then down at her. "How'd you do that?"

"I…oh crap."

"Chlo," He said, "School starts in about ten minutes, and Lana will be back in five. I've already got this pretty shitty cover story cooking about a Central Kansas Frat prank I caught the end of after setting you up in The Torch office."

"That's pretty good actually for on the fly." She said, genuinely impressed by Clark's evolution as a con artist. It was just one of the side skills acquired while dating a Czechoslovakian.

He grabbed both her shoulders and shook her. "Damn it, Chlo. Why is there a symbol from the caves on our high school?" He narrowed his eyes and then he cursed under his breath. "You lied to me. You put the key in the cave wall yesterday, didn't you?"

"I did and I'm sorry, but I couldn't wait any longer. How was I supposed to know something was going to hijack my heat vision?"

"Has it passed?"

"Yeah." She said, nodding. "I'm sure of it."

"Fine. When Lana gets back, look shocked and start spouting your best Wall of Weird theories."

"So Defcon1 again?"

"Afraid so. Chlo?" He asked, most of the anger and fear drained out of his voice.

"Uh-huh." She said, turning around and following his gaze back to the gym wall.

"What's it say?" Despite everything, there was genuine awe in his tone, a brimming curiosity, and she remembered that he was still very much an investigator in his own right. He was a scientist the way Dr. Willowbrook was an anthropologist and he made a nice counterbalance to Lex's Dr. Walden demeanor. He needed to know too, but he never took.

He merely asked.

So she gifted him with the truth. "Ironically enough, considering how screwed I am, it means hope.


	6. Chapter 6

**6**

Chloe had done a fantastic job of recruiting minions for The Torch. Two years ago, the newspaper had been so unpopular that the previous editor had been forced to recruit eighth graders in order to keep the paper running. It was how she had won the dubious honor of typing up the graduation speeches in the first place. Last year, it had been hard just to sucker Pete and Clark into helping her. However, Lana and Pete, both manipulative in their own way, had helped her convince the freshmen she'd deemed most promising to join The Torch. They'd never be as popular an activity as cheerleading or football. She wasn't delusional about that, but they did have about four freshmen this year who handled the lunch menu type minutia. They were good minions and she was very fond of them. Unfortunately, hiring minions meant that she had also hired an assistant photographer for those times when Pete's football practice or debate team meets left him unable to do his Torchly duties. Colin Creevy was as dedicated to photography as she was to reporting and even though his lady editor had dismissed the frat prank as "not worth printing," he'd thought otherwise.

He'd taken a full roll of film of the accident with the gymnasium.

And, being the enterprising young man that he was, he'd sold the shots to _The Ledger _, and they'd run it in the following's morning addition with the surprisingly _Inquisitor _like angle of gym burnings being akin to crop circles.

Her dad had been furious.

Correction.

Her dad was furious. So was Pete, and Clark didn't look too thrilled with her either. They were all sitting in her living room. Her father had called into the school about an unexpected flat tire that had ruined his chances at carpool duty and had assured Principal Reynolds that all of them would be in by lunch time. Reynolds hadn't been thrilled with the prospect, but he hadn't argued with the official, parental party line either. Great. It just made the Spanish Inquisition that much more convenient to assemble.

Pete was standing across the room from her, leaning against the elaborate entertainment center her father had geeked out over last Christmas. Her father was pacing the carpet in front of her, while she and Clark were seated on the sofa, although, unlike two days ago, they were on opposite ends of the couch. While her father and Pete glared at her, Clark gave her the full-on cow eyes. It was worse, somehow, to see his disappoint than it was to see her father's anger. She'd betrayed him and she knew it.

Finally, even her father could not persist with is frenetic pacing. Coming to a halt in front of her, he tossed their copy of _The Ledger _down on her lap.

"Do you have any idea how bad this is?"

"I think I might, considering I was the one trying to get Colin not to run it. How was I supposed to know he'd sell me out to the Ledger?" She snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. She might be in the wrong in this discussion but she was still a Sullivan and she didn't back down on anything.

"Don't smart off to me today, Chloe. I am not in the mood." Her father said in measured tones. "There's a Kawatchee symbol burned onto the high school and The Ledger was just sensationalistic enough to add the alien angle and even if they hadn't helped us out with that, do you really think something like that was going to escape Lex's notice?"

"Well it's not like I intended for it to happen."

"But you didn't know that it wouldn't." Pete said, shaking his head.

"That's a lot of double negatives in one sentence." She shot back.

"Chlo, seriously, you knew the dangers of putting the key in the cave or at least you could guess and you went ahead and did it anyway. What in the world were you thinking?" Clark asked, blinking back at her.

She turned to him and glared. "Two days ago you were the one promising that we'd go to my dad together and talk to him about going to the caves, and now what I did was a bad idea. You're a hypocrite, Clark."

"I am not." He said, readjusting the glasses that had slipped low on his nose. "And you promised not to lash out anymore. It's not fair to take everything out on us." As he finished speaking, he cast his gaze lower, avoiding her eyes.

She sighed and put her hand on his knee. "Alright. I promise I won't snap at you, but you guys have to see it from my perspective. I'm the one who's outnumbered here. I have three people who don't understand anything about how I feel dictating every move I make and it's not fair."

"Chlo-bear," Her dad said, sighing, "We're not trying to dictate anything."

"And it still feels like three on one."

"And we're trying to help you because you matter to us and we want to keep you safe." Pete said. "How are we supposed to do that if you keep doing stupid stuff like messing with alien artifacts?"

"First of all, they're _my _artifacts. Second, you guys can't protect me forever. People like Phelan and Nixon have already found me, and Lex won't stop staring at me like I'm a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. Eventually, someone, somewhere is going to figure everything out."

Clark rocked back like she'd slapped him. Okay, well maybe not her, because if she'd slapped him, his head would have ended up in California, but he did turn away like he'd suffered a physical blow. "Don't even talk like that. We'd never let that happen."

In an effort to comfort him, she squeezed his knee. "I know you don't want it to happen, but we've had a lot of close calls and, honestly, if Lex ever made his move there's not a lot the three of you could do. It's on me now."

"But it doesn't have to be, sweetheart. We're trying here and you're doing things that get you more attention and don't help you blend in. This is so much bigger than what happened in Metropolis or when you saved Lex and Clark. The whole town has seen it." Her dad said, running a hand through his thinning hair.  
>"And The Ledger's online now. Anyone who really wants to can access it and with keywords in the headline like 'alien' and 'crop circle' it's going to go global in the bug-eyed monster circle." Pete added.<p>

"But it's not like it says 'Alien Art by Chloe Sullivan' or something. There's no reason to connect it to me."

"No, not necessarily," Clark agreed, his tone neutral. Chloe actually hated that more than if he'd been screaming, not that Clark ever did. When Clark started sounding all professor-y, it meant that he was trying to intuit something, trying to suss her true motives out. "But Lex knows you and your connection to the caves. I'd also bet he knows just how many early mornings it takes to keep The Torch running. He'll put it together."

"Lex," Pete replied, saying the word like someone else might speak the name of a hated politician. "I don't know why either of you even hang out with him. His dad's bad news and he's probably worse. I wouldn't trust Lex around my goldfish, let alone with me and I don't even have superpowers."

"He's not that bad." Clark defended.

"No," Pete corrected. "His cool toys and sports cars aren't that bad. Luthor's a snake and flaunting who you are right in front of him is going to ruin you, Chloe."

She snorted. "It's not like I float in front of him or anything. I just…I enjoy his company is all."

"Yeah, that's reassuring." Pete riposted.

Clark frowned but said nothing, but his eyes grew wider and she felt like she'd just kicked a puppy or, possibly, Clark's favorite cow. She smiled sweetly up at him, "Clark, I swear it's not like that. It's just…I know that ignoring is just going to make it worse. If I keep up with him, try and figure out what he knows or thinks he knows, then I can still stay one step ahead of him. If I hide from him, ignore everything, then it'll be so much easier for him to ambush me if the worst ever happens."

He nodded, but his expression remained somber. "But you like him too."

"He's a friend. Granted, the kind I have to lie to and manipulate, the kind I can never tell the whole truth to, but he's my friend."

"Which is something I never should have allowed in the first place." Her father said.

"And I'm sixteen or as close as we can guess and I'm old enough to make my own mistakes."

"Like the caves." He answered. "Chlo-bear, I need to know everything that happened the day you left school sick and, so help me, if you leave anything out, I will tell Principal Reynolds that you're resigning from The Torch."

"Daddy!" She shrieked. "You wouldn't."

"You don't think that I would?"

"Fine." She said, narrowing her eyes at her father. "What do you need to know?"

"Everything, Chlo. We need to have the actual facts, not just the stuff you made up that you thought I'd wanna hear." Clark answered, his tone bitter.

"Not much happened. I heard the ringing, ran home and found the key in Moira's things, went to the cave and inserted the key in the slot."

"And that was it?" Pete asked, frowning.

It was then that Chloe remembered that not only was Clark intuitive and her father intelligent, but that Pete was the son of a judge and a lawyer, although she was a skilled liar by necessity, even she wasn't going to be able to fool a tribunal like that, especially after all that had happened.

"No, there was this bright light and it ran through me. It was so painful, and it made my head pound. I got all these flashes, all these images that ran through my mind so fast even I couldn't follow them, and then I passed out."

"Lex." Clark said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. "It didn't make sense that he sent a car for you here. I was trying to figure that out ever since you told me, but, obviously, that's not what happened. You passed out and he found you there, didn't he?"

"Chloe!" Pete snapped. "Are you completely crazy or just suicidal?"

"Pete," her father said gently. "I'll handle this, but it is a good question, Chlo-bear."

She sighed and threw her hands up in the air. "Maybe a little of both, honestly. All I know is that the key was driving me crazy. I mean, I was waking up in weird places, having this shrill ring assaulting my ears, just everything was going wonky. I had to do something. How was I supposed to know it would knock me out or that Lex would find me?"

"You could have waited to go with all of us." Her dad insisted.

"And it takes all my superspeed to avoid detection by his guards in the cave. A whole troop of tourists never would have passed through unnoticed. Besides," She added, holding her chin up defiantly at her father. "We'd all 'agreed' to just ignore the key until I slept flew through downtown Smallville."

"You weren't going to do that." He defended.  
>"Wait." Pete said, shaking his head. "You can actually fly?"<p>

"Only unconsciously. You missed a lot on Monday morning. It was a thing."

"Totally Defcon1," Clark supplied, flashing her a small grin.

"Oh." Pete said and he was definitely disappointed.

"Anyway, all this stuff was happening to me and it wouldn't wait, and I thought the key would make it stop. Except now it's not the sleep-flying or the ringing. I mean, I can read the symbols, but I don't even know how that's possible. I have all this information in my head now-this whole other language and, I dunno, this information that isn't mine, but it is, you know?"

"Download." Clark said, shooting a look at Pete.

"Machurian candidate action." He said nodding."The cave downloaded you with like embedded learning or something. It might explain why your heat vision went wonky."

"If by 'wonky' you mean totally and dangerously out of control." She said, frowning. "Wait a minute. Manchurian Candidate? Like with Old Blue Eyes action? I'm not mind-controlled."

Pete held out his hands defensively. "I never said you were."

"Not in so many words."

"But clearly the key itself was doing stuff to your subconscious before you even used it, and now whatever's in your head is playing around with you too."

"Will it stop?" Her dad, asked him, his eyes wide.

"Like I know. I'm assuming Chloe's not being prepared to be an assassin or anything, which I'm pretty comfortable assuming. However, her heat vision might get hijacked again."

Chloe hugged her knees to her chest. She hadn't felt this afraid and powerless since her heat vision had begun. She didn't like being unable to control her powers, hated that nagging fear that she'd screw up and hurt someone she loved like she almost had with Clark yesterday. "Oh God."

Then Clark was there, arms strengthened by years of farm chores wrapping tightly around her shoulders. "Chlo, it's okay. I don't believe that's what's going on here."

"You don't?"

"No. What you did yesterday, even if you weren't the one doing it, was controlled. It wasn't random carnage. It was like a beacon."

She barked out a laugh. "So what? I'm actually phoning home?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but I don't think this is like last time when you had to leave Metropolis, I really don't."

"Let's hope not." Her dad said and she noticed the sweat running down his temples as he spoke. "Chlo-bear, where's the key now?"

"I don't know."

'What?"  
>"It wasn't there when I woke up and when I left the mansion to read the walls, I scanned the whole cave. I'm not sure but I think it disintegrated."<p>

"But you're not sure?" Pete prodded.

"Not completely. I mean, I was out for a while and it was kind of chaotic after with me playing defense against Lex and that noxious Dr. Walden was there too. He was all snide and big with the Swiss Miss inspired potshots."

"Could he have it?" Clark asked.

She shrugged and hugged her knees tighter. "God, I hope not but even if he did I don't think the key works for humans. Christ, the download nearly killed _me _. Even if the wall activated for a human, they'd never survive it. There's no way that even if he had it, it would allow him to read the caves. Besides," she added bitterly. "The only that's there is the full detailed story of Numan and Segeeth. There's nothing about who my people were or where we're…they're from."

"One thing at a time then." Her dad said, regaining some of his composure. "We'll start looking for the key as soon as we can but for the next few weeks no one goes near the caves. You all go to school, pretend everything's normal, and everyone sticks with the frat prank angle. We just let it die down until the next Inquisitor headline leads people back to Roswell or wherever."

"Okay." Chloe said, sighing. "But there's one more thing you need to know."

"What?" Clark asked, his intense gaze focused on her.

"Lex has been researching the writing for a long time. He told me so, and it's not just in Smallville. He showed me all these files he had on my people's writing samples from China, Egypt, and Mexico."

"The Prince of Darkness just sat you down and showed you his alien writing collection." Pete scoffed. "I'm sure that came up in a random conversation. How much did you tell him?"

"Nothing." She snapped. "I lied like the pro I am, but he's the one focused on the caves and the cryptography, and he knows that I am too."

"And he probably suspects that you can give him all the information he needs." Pete scoffed.

"Ironically, until two days ago, I really couldn't. I…" She hesitated avoiding their eyes and staring instead at the intricate weaving in the carpet below, nothing like shag after all. "He offered me a partnership to study the symbols and I took it. What's more," She said, staring back up at her father, her eyes flashing just a hint of russet. "I intent to keep my promise. I'm working with him."

"You _have _gone completely bonkers, haven't you?" Pete asked, beginning to pace. "You can't even trust your heat vision and now you're going to cuddle up to the local villain-in-waiting?"

"First, Lex is not the bad guy here. He's our friend." She defended. "Clark, back me up here."

"I…he's not a bad guy." Clark said and when he spoke, his voice was soft, wounded. "But he had you investigated, Chlo."

"Which I knew he was doing. Look, I'm out of options. My stupid download didn't give me any answers and now my key's gone so that stupid tin can my whatevers sent me here in is completely useless. He's got writing from my people and it might be relevant but I can't get to it unless he lets me see it."

"And you sit down for a nice fireside chat, and your heat vision scorches his own personal alien sigil into his wall and then what happens?" Pete groused.

"I don't know." She answered honestly. "But if I don't work with him, he'll crack the code eventually and who's to say that what he finds _won't _lead him back to me anyway."

"Sabotage." Her dad said, a bit of pride creeping into his voice. "You plan to make sure he never gets anything."

"It's not a very safe plan." Clark said, squeezing her shoulder. "I can't say I like it."

"I'm not thrilled either, especially with my heat vision all wonky. You might be scared to watch it run wild but you have no idea how terrifying it is to have it shoot off and then have it feel like it may never stop. But I _need _to do this, and what's more I'm going to do it." She said, pulling out of her boyfriend's embrace and standing up to face her father. "I appreciate everything you've done-all of you-to keep me safe. But it's not about safe anymore; it's not about playing defense anymore either. It's offense time and it's time that I found out who I am."

Her father stood there for a long while, considering her words before he finally spoke. "I don't have a lot of say in the matter, do I?"

"No, you really don't."

"Fine but, for the record, I think this is a bad idea."

"Plans born of desperation usually are." Clark replied solemnly.

Yeah, that made her feel loads better.

"So, what are you? A Lang or a Small?" She asked as she hung her jacket over the back of her desk. Clark was supposed to be joining her in a few minutes to help her fix up the edition of The Torch that had already been delayed to due mysterious pyrotechnics and that pesky car trouble her dad had had this morning. However, Clark being Clark was late and she had nothing better to do than to fiddle with the lay out and make small talk with Lana.

Not that it was such a chore these days. The girl often took wicked potshots at her former clique when coaxed. It never hurt to have a girl on staff who knew just which member of the pom-pom brigade had been the originator of the mono outbreak last fall.

"Right now," Lana answered, scanning a few photos into her desktop, "I'm committing to my mother's side of the family."

"Oh really?" Chloe asked, leaning over the other girl's shoulder. "Hmm, is that why Nell's there and with little cartoon horns nonetheless. That's kind of an improvement."

Lana shrugged. "I believe in truth in advertising. I'm not actually going to keep those shots in the final project, but they are fun to have for posterity, you know?"

"Nothing like spoiling her grand-nieces." Chloe snarked, shaking her head. "At least you've started yours. I haven't even thought about what mine will look like, but I'm pretty sure it'll be all Sullivan, all the time, although, I'm almost tempted to keep Moira's side in if only for some of the awesome pics Lois sent me of when they were stationed in Germany."

"Beer and chocolate?"

"Something like that." She said. "Hey, Lana, not that it's not important to see Nell with a mustaches on my work space, but can you hop up a sec. I need to borrow the computer."

Lana snorted even as she pushed herself away from the monitor. "You don't _need _to. You just have a pathological addiction to checking your e-mail."

"You got me," Chloe said, clicking open her account. "What can I say? It let me knows I'm loved."

"I love you."

"Only so long as I defend your more vitriolic cartoons to Principal Reynolds."

"Hey," Lana said, lying back against her chair. "What can I say? I love the power of the press."

"Yeah and some people can abuse their First Amendment rights and what the Hell?"

"What?" Lana said, rolling back over to the monitor. "Huh. Looks like someone spammed your e-mail account."

"Spammed would be an understatement. I must have two hundred e-mails here since yesterday. Jesus, who has this kind of time?"

"Apparently a V. Swann does." Lana smirked back at her. "Chloe, shame on you for carrying on behind Clark's back."

"Behind who's back now?" Clark asked as he (finally) entered the office. "So gang when did reading Chloe's e-mail become a group activity."

"Since I got my own cyberstalker." She snarked, clicking open the most recent e-mail. When it opened, she felt a sharp chill spread through her body. "What the Hell?"

"Well," Lana added thoughtfully. "It looks like V. Swann really has a thing for flambed gym walls. I mean, that's the same frat prank design, right? It looks the same except for the word flashing underneath. How weird is that?"  
>"Yeah, that's really lame, right?" Clark said, his voice too forced and bright. "Hey, Lana, can you do me like a super huge favor?"<p>

"Depends. Do I have to leave my seat?"

"Yeah, sorry. I am such a spaz. My mom needed me to help her cover a shift at The Talon today but I promised her when I thought The Torch would already be put to bed. Would you mind just this once covering for me? I swear I'll help you with math for a week."

Lana sighed and shook her head. Standing up, she yanked on her jacket and grabbed up her purse. "Sure, Clark, just this once but you'd better up that to _doing _my homework for the next week. The judge and Mr. Ross were going to Granville tonight for a banquet and I was finally going to be able to coax Pete out of the friend zone." She added, disappearing out the door.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Unlikely. Pete 'The Boss' Ross is scared shitless of Aunt Nell and all her loyal spies in Smallville. He'll have to put in some contingency plans to protect 'Lil Pete before he leaves that zone."

"That's a tragic tale to be sure, but I'm more interested in why this e-mail translates Kawatchee, for lack of the actual language's name, correctly. It is hope, right?"

"Yup," Chloe said, her throat dry. "Whoever this is, they got it right. They _know _."

She felt Clark's hand come to rest on her left shoulder. When he spoke, his voice trembled a little. "Chloe, do you know who V. Swann is?"

"Cyberstalker who knows way too much comes to mind." She quipped.

"Well, yeah, there is that." He said, his hand shaking on her shoulder. "But he's also the most famous extraterrestrial researcher in the world."

"Crap."

"Yeah," he said, his voice still tremulous. "That about sums it up."


	7. Chapter 7

**7**

Chloe took a deep breath and blinked back at the flashing sigil on her computer screen. "Clark, you're going to need to repeat that last part because I couldn't hear you over the sound of my impending aneurysm."

"Chlo, just keep breathing."

"Oh, I think I'm at least doing that. I'm breathing so hard that I'm about to hyperventilate over here. You didn't just tell me that this V. Swann guy is some extraterrestrial expert."

Clark sighed and pulled a chair up next to hers. "Take another breath."

"Quit saying that!"

He held up his hands placatingly. "I promise I won't anymore since it clearly just pisses you off more."

"Damn straight it does."

"Fine," he said, letting out another deep sigh. "I…maybe you don't have to freak out right this second."

"Should I freak out when I'm actually a guest in residence at Area 51?" She snapped and then winced when the wood of the desk shattered between her clenched fingers. "Damn it! Now Principal Reynolds is going to kill me. This just can't get worse."

He reached over and rubbed her back right between the shoulder blades. "Chlo, don't worry about the desk." He said, giving her a small smile. "We'll just tell him that Pete did it. He's the star of the debate team and there's that meet coming up. He'll be totally off the hook."

"Yeah, that's reassuring." She replied. "Now, can you keep me from having a heart attack over here."

"I thought it was an aneurysm."

"Maybe it's both. So who is V. Swann?"

"V. Swann as in Virgil Swann. I'm sure you've heard of him." Clark said, his eyes growing wide. "He's one of the most famous physicists out there. I mean, the guy won the Nobel prize by the time he was thirty and every major advance in the field has come from him…or it did. I mean, he's been underground for over a decade."

She nodded. "Yeah _Virgil _I've heard of. He also happens to dabble in being a communications expert on the side. I mean, he has more hardware in space than most governments until he pulled the J.D. Salinger." She frowned. "Come to think of it, he sold his company about a month after the first meteor shower."

Clark nodded. "And then he started his much better funded version of SETI."

Chloe gulped. "Either he figured out from whatever satellite images he had available that my ship snuck in with the meteors-"

Shaking his head, Clark cut her off. "It doesn't track. Swann's been in hiding in New York all that time. If he'd known your ship got this far, I bet he'd have at least sent someone in here to look for it. Hell, Lex just thought he could find the key to your ship and he set up all that bogus land testing stuff. Swann's got almost as many resources."

"And that's why you shouldn't interrupt me. I was going to say that maybe it isn't me he found. Maybe there was something else that he got a hold of."

Clark nodded and pursed his lips together. "Satellites don't always just pick up an image. They can pick up signals too. There was some kind of pulse following the shower that shut down all the satellites for about six hours. There could have been some kind of message embedded in that, and not just some fallout from the meteors entering the atmosphere like was the official cover story."

She blinked. "You rattled all of that stuff off very easily, Clark."

He shifted nervously in his seat. "I…well, I was always kind of an astronomy geek. Smallville meteor shower was like the biggest thing astronomical to hit here so, yeah, I read a lot about it when I was younger."

"And then you started dating the traveler it brought with it." She said, grinning wryly.

He shrugged. "Destiny or irony, take your pick."

"Oh, I'll call it destiny. So, just so I'm sure we're together on this, you're thinking that Swann might have picked up whatever set of instructions came with me that I missed."

He snorted. "You're not a microwave, Chlo. I'm pretty sure it wasn't some kind of owner's manual if there's even a signal, but Swann's a communications expert, if anything else at all came in that day, he'd be the most likely person to have heard it."

"And it explains why he's all gung ho about sending me messages too."

Clark nodded. "So that still doesn't tell us what we should do. I gotta tell you, one billionaire with limitless resources is just as scary as the other two."

"Yeah, that's true…" She hedged, biting her lower lip. "…but Swann's not Lionel. He's donated almost a billion dollars of his personal fortune to charities and that doesn't include all the money he's dumped into expanding his SETI knock-off."  
>"I know, Chlo, and I want to believe that he's not dangerous. Really, you have no idea how exciting it is to even think that the Virgil Swann is contacting my girlfriend."<p>

"God, you really are a geek."

"Shamelessly so." He said. "But no matter how many hospices he opens and no matter how much money he gives to AIDS charities, it doesn't mean you can trust him."

"Uh-huh but this might be the out I was looking for. I mean, Lex is pretty much the root of all evil, at least according to Pete, and my dad is panicked about me working with him, but Swann might know more than even those stupid cave paintings could provide me with. Furthermore-" A loud pinging cut her off and it startled her so badly that she her fingers clenched again, shattering the wood further. "What was that?"

"You left you AIM on." Clark said, snorting. "I didn't know Reynolds even allowed that."

"He doesn't, but it's hard to block a girl who can hack a firewall in a single bound."

"So I see," Clark said, looking over her shoulder at the screen. "It says here it's from a V. Swann."

"God, he did take cyberstalking to a whole new level, didn't he?"

"You don't have to answer it."

"And he's already sent ten more e-mails since I opened my account and I think he's not just going to go away no matter how often I hit the delete button." She said, moving the cursor and clicking open the chat window. The screen filled out with one very simple sentence:  
><em>I have something for you. <em>

"Well that doesn't sound vaguely ominous," Clark quipped.

She turned to him. "Or maybe it's a good thing. We could be right, Clark. Maybe he has a message for me or maybe, god Clark, maybe he's already made contact. What if I'm not the only one and there really is a colony out there where the rest of my people are."

"I thought you said you weren't leaving Smallville." He said in a quiet voice.

Her elation faded a bit at that. "I'm not, but maybe I do have other people like me out there and he can help me find them."

"And maybe he wants to put you in a lab." Clark countered.

"Not you too. Not with all the paranoia that my dad has."

"It's not paranoia when the guy's stalking you when he shouldn't even have been able to connect you to the scorched wall at all." He pointed out.

"I know, really I do, but, Clark, he's apparently your big nerd hero. You don't think he's a Lionel Luthor type either. Do you?"

"No, I don't. But he's brilliant and he knows more about you than he should."

"Well he can join the club right behind the Luthors and you and Pete. " She snarked. Then, swiveling away from the computer, she reached out and took his hand. "You promised me that we were in this together and that you'd help me."

"I did say that. That's true."

"Clark, Swann might be able to tell me about my family. If it were you, if someone was offering to open your adoption records right now and tell you everything you'd ever wanted to know about where you'd come from, what would you do?"

He didn't even hesitate as he answered. "I'd take it."

"It's the same thing with me. This could be what I've been waiting for."

"Just like with the key and we can all see how well that all worked out." Clark said glumly.

"But it is working out. I mean, it led to Swann, even if it wasn't supposed to. Clark, how much danger could he possibly put me in. There's no way he knows about the meteor rocks, let alone has one as far away from Smallville as he is."

"I know. I still can't help being all cautious about it, and I'm the one who's still pretty new to this covert ops stuff." He sighed and squeezed her hand back. "I'm with you but it doesn't mean I'm not going to be scared shitless for you at the same time."

"I appreciate the sentiments." She said, clicking the window and typing her response all the while talking aloud so Clark could follow her. "What do you have for me?"

The screen blinked at Swann replied _Something important, but I need proof first that you're the one I'm looking for. Answer the question and we'll proceed. _Then, and Chloe had no idea how he did it, Swann was able to print out a collection of sigils onto the screen.

"Chlo?" Clark prodded gently. "What's it say?"

"It says 'I'm a friend.'"

"I sure hope so."

"Yeah, you're telling me." She said, typing her next response. "So you say you're a friend. It doesn't mean that I can trust you."

"Yes, way not to antagonize the potentially dangerous scientist," Clark drolled.

"You're not helping." She said, preparing to read the next response out loud for him, marveling a little that he'd been able to program the Kawatchee language-no _her _language-into the system. "Huh."

"What?"

"That's a hell of a translation. I'm not even sure I'm reading it right."

"I thought the download covered everything."

She snorted. "I wish you and Pete hadn't decided to call it that. It makes me sound like I'm a stupid computer or something." Sighing, she added. "It says, or at least I think it says, 'the fault is not in the stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.'"

Clark whistled. "No wonder you were having the problems with translations. Who even uses the word 'underlings' ever?"

Chloe didn't want to explain that that word had been one of the easiest to place. She didn't like what that said about her people at all. "Uh, yeah. It's a quote from _Julius Caesar _.

"You remember ninth grade English?"

"Not all of us are strictly left brained, Mr. Wizard."

"Hey!" Clark huffed. "I resent that. You know I like writing as much as you do, but I'm more of a Hemingway type. I don't do the fancy Elizabethan stuff. Besides, I didn't really like that one, poor Brutus got a bad wrap."

"Never easy being honorable." She said, frowning. "But look at the response-stars. He suspects or at least he thinks he knows."

"I hate to state the obvious but he _knew _the minute that you proved you could read the symbols."

She sighed. "I know, but I have to try, Clark. You know that."

"I do, but I think, at the very least, we all know that Swann's on the same playing field with Lex."

"Yeah, I think he lapped Lex a few times. He can read the language better than I can." She added, typing in her response, "'Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, such men are dangerous.'"

Clark whistled. "You really did like the play, huh?"

"Photographic memory," She replied, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for Swann's next message to appear. A few seconds later, the now teasing ping sounded and she read:

_I promise I'm fat. _

She grinned. Who knew there was more than one way to play dangerous word games with almost omnipotent billionaires? The back and forth was no less real, no less important to win, than when she played it with Lex, but the menace wasn't there. God help her, she _wanted _to trust him.

"I hope so, not that I'm admitting anything one way or the other. What do you have for me and how can I get it?" She typed.

_Meet me: Central Park West at 79th Street, New York City, New York _

"Chlo," Clark started, his voice quavering. "What are you going to do?"

She took another steadying breath. She wanted to do a lot of things, needed to do them, but she had a Lex to look after, a scandal to put to bed here, and a million more reservations than even Clark had about meeting Swann. She just needed a few days, some time to collect her thoughts, to throw the first threatening billionaire off her trail before she dealt with the interloping one. Moving the cursor, she clicked the window shut and then proceeded to delete her e-mails and block his address.

Clark's eyes widened at that. "But what about the truth?"

"There's time." She said, simply. "He's not going anywhere, we know he's not, and I have to do something about Lex first. I have to."

"You're scared."

"You have no idea." She said, leaning into his open arms. "I don't want to just walk into some trap when I've spent so much time being careful. I've waited for thirteen years…I can wait a day or two until at least Lowell County stops talking about alien gym scorching."

"And then?"

"What do you think happens then?"

"I think we'll have a date at the New York Planetarium."

"No better place to look for little green men or, you know, short blond girls."

Clark nodded and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. "You know, he might not even believe you're an alien. You sure don't look like one."  
>"Would you rather I had an exo-skleleton and spit acid?"<p>

"Um, no thank you." He said, squeezing her closer. "One thing, though, you mentioned Lex?"

"Uh-huh."

He sighed and then hesitated before responding, his silence stretching between them like a great divide. She just knew he was doing that uncanny intuitive thing he did. "How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many times are you going to shave the truth for the rest of us?" He asked, his tone resigned.

"I didn't mean to. ..I just…dad was so panicked and Pete and I didn't want to mention everything. It's not bad, I promise."

"But it has you worried. Worried enough to wait to seize your big break with Swann and we both know how headstrong you've been about everything since your dreams started. He didn't just imply that you could read the language, did he?"

"Clark," she started. "You can't tell my dad about this, please. If this one got repeated then he _would _make us move. I know it."

"Jesus." He swore, pulling her even closer.

Closing her eyes, she clung to his arms and, for just an instant, let herself pretend that she was just any other ordinary girl and that the boy she loved could really shoulder her burdens, keep her safe. "He can't prove anything."  
>"Yet and that's the <em>only <em>thing we have going for us."

"I know."

"Just so I know, Chlo, what couldn't he prove?"

"He…you've heard of Von Daniken?"

Clark snorted and, despite the alien in his arms, started into a rant, "What a crock. I mean, come on extraterrestrials in South America building spaceship landing sites, intergalactic travelers building the pyramids. I gave all that up for bogus in the fifth grade."

"Yeah and, huh, wouldn't you know that it's all true? Hell, I'm the alien and I still think he's full of crap."

He sputtered and she could just see his cheeks flushing bright red. "Right….um, sorry?"

She snorted. "Like I care if my ancestors got off on making nice with the primitives."

"Hey!"

"Well, why not embrace the weird. If we hadn't helped you out, I bet the pyramids would still be sitting around half finished and there'd be a lack of tourism in England because so no Stone Hinge."

"Is that yours?"

She shrugged. "Like I know. Anyway, the point is Lex does think Van Daniken was right. He said he thought that maybe aliens were still here, blending in and reporting on humans even."

"Jesus."

"You said that already." She said burrowing into him. "And he said it staring straight at me. I blew it off, you know. Laughed right in his face, but he's definitely thought about it. He's at least made the connection even as a far flung 'what if.' If he ever gets proof…"

"He won't." Clark finished, his voice almost a growl.

"I know, and that's why I have to play cat and mouse with him right now, have to prove to him just how bland and All-American I am so he stops even playing with the idea that I'm, well, me."

"Okay, then that's what we'll do." Clark finished, kissing the top of her head. "Chlo?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you think it's true?"

"Well I know my ancestors did get as far as Mexico, China and Egypt. I mean, they were definitely leaving their mark."

He shook his head. "No not about the _Chariots of the Gods _stuff. I mean, do you think that maybe you are here to, I dunno, just observe us."

She laughed. It was a bitter, braying sound, offending even her sensitive ears. "So what? I'm Jane Goodall and you're all my chimps?"  
>Clark snorted. "I sure hope not because that's a world of wrong right there."<p>

"I know," She said. Pulling apart from him and turning around to look him in the eyes. "You know I don't mean it that way either. I'd never think any less of you or Dad or Pete or anybody. Hell, if I had a choice, I'd rather be human than whatever the Hell I am."

He nodded. "I get that. I'd never think that you'd get all elitist on us, honest. It's just that maybe that is why you're here. You're so good at noticing everything, maybe you're just wherever's cultural correspondent."

"Not the secret sleep agent for when the invasion begins?" She asked, her voice breaking at the end of her poorly conceived joke.

"Never, Chlo. I'd never believe anything like that about you, not ever." He added, grinning back at her. "I told you, you're possibly the best person I know. You're my hero."

"You only say that because I occasional take Porsches for you."

And then Clark did that earnest farmboy thing he did so well and totally derailed her sarcasm. Taking her right hand in his and using the other to brush her cheek lightly, he said, "No. I mean it. You didn't know what was going to happen when you pushed me aside. Chlo, you were going to die for me. No one secretly evil would have done that. Hell, no one who wasn't in love with me would have done that."

"I know." She said, offering him a weak grin. "I'm so glad you figured that part out."

He leaned over and kissed her for a long time, letting his fingers trail through her hair as he did it. When he pulled back, he added, "Me too. Like I said, at least we can thank Lex for something."

"Yeah, Lex."  
>His grin broadened. "Don't worry, Chlo, we've handled everything else. We'll survived this."<p>

She nodded back, trying to take comfort in his words but the truth was that they hadn't handled everything. Lex, himself had. He'd killed Nixon, and he'd been there with the museum guards when Phelan had been killed. Besides, Clark hadn't seen the look in Lex's eyes in the mansion. He _knew _, and even if she succeeded at playing hot potato with the evidence of her otherness, Lex would still always suspect her.

Always.

And she didn't know how to fix that or to keep herself safe if Swann turned out to be as bad as Lionel or why a simple phrase had stirred up something deep in her download, something ugly, with visions of supplicants and subjugation playing in the corners of her mind. The Kawatchee held that Numan had been a savior, and Clark practically thought she was an angel.

She knew better.

If she were an angel, her wings were soot gray, ask Whitney Fordman about that.

And if her people were so goddamn noble, why was one sigil the first to pop into her mind, even a faster recall than with "hope" yesterday morning. One word that came so easily and said so much:

"Underlings."

Clark frowned as he reached over to turn off her computer. "What'd you say?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. I…it's nothing." She added, standing up and scooping up her jacket. "Usual potential evil of the rich and vengeful aside, everything is fine."

She told so many lies every day.

What was one more?


	8. Chapter 8

**8**

"With all the intrigue over at Smallville High, I didn't expect to see you come by for at least a few more days." Lex quipped, looking up from the files on his desk that he was reviewing.

Chloe snorted. "It's not like a Tom Clancy novel, Lex. There was a Central Kansas frat prank and then the poor janitor had to repaint the flambed cinder block, end of story."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Our young Mr. Creevy didn't agree with you on that one. Curious, isn't it? The Torch prints all kinds of articles that only marginally qualify as being about school and now there's actual vandalism on campus-a first for a hamlet this remote, I'm sure-and you won't print it."

She slung her bag down beside the fireplace and sunk down into his leather sofa. "Reynolds told me not to run it. He didn't want the bad press or anything running that would upset the parents. I listened to him. Last time I stuck it to a principal, Lana ended up as head editor."

He nodded and pushed away from his desk. "So I'd heard about that one."

"Uh-huh." She said, crossing her legs and affecting boredom. "Are we going to do this or not? You do know that I have homework and Torch work and all that other stuff piling up. Besides, I have to still be home on time. I don't want my dad getting suspicious about anything."

"The way you say that." He said, entering the code to the safe built into his book shelf. "It makes this sound much more sordid than it actually is. We're conducting archaeological research, not hosting an orgy."

"Funny, Lex." She said, gratefully accepting one of the sheaves of photos from him. "Orgies, I think, my dad might almost be able to handle. He just doesn't want me messing with this stuff is all-you know, getting caught up in that epic land struggle between LuthorCorp and the Kawatchee. He's not too fond of my activist phase."

He frowned and shook his head. "If that's the party line for the day, Chloe, but you know I don't buy that."

"You never believe anything."

"And, from one skeptic to another, I know you don't either."

"Except, apparently, I am willing to at least flirt with Von Daniken's ideas." Chloe answered, shuffling the photos on her lap.

"That took quite a bit of convincing for you even to consider it."

She shrugged. "Someone has to be the Scully here."

He shook his head again and sat down to review his own half of the research. "Why do I think that, in this case, that is certainly not you."

"Whatever." She said, easily assuming the mocking tone that was apparently the default setting for all teenage girls, whether they were from Kansas or Neptune. "I'm not the one assuming the Kawatchee legend is the key to unimaginable knowledge and power. Sometimes a legend is just a legend, Lex."

"I see." He said, squinting down at a shot that she recognized as being from the cave walls. "Is that why you're eagerly looking over my international files."  
>"Well, I do Scooby with the best of them. A mystery is a mystery and the town's been short of meteor mutants as of late." She said, easing into a comfortable silence with him as they both began their research in earnest.<p>

The stack she'd been handed was divided into two smaller piles, bundled together. The smaller pile was a collection of photos from inside of an Egyptian pyramid. The location of the pyramid had been lost since the twenties, a large sandstorm had buried that particular segment of the Valley of the Kings below dozens of feet of grit, and there were still ongoing excavations to get back to it. There wasn't , as of yet, an excessive rush. The pyramid had been empty, robbed years ago of whatever gold and kingly riches it had held. However, the walls were still decorated with the same language as from the caves, _her _language. The story they told was almost identical to the Numan legend. Segeeth was still there; the legend of his true one was there as well. Chloe chuckled to herself. Clark did not know about the bracelet that Dr. Willowbrook had given her following his grandson's death. Of course, her ancestor had, like the Kawatchee, been betting that his heir was going to be male and his "true one" female.

Well, on the plus side, Clark had amazing blue-green eyes. They'd go well with the bracelet. If she ever got up the guts to show it to him and if his fashion since did a very Metropolitan 180.

The only deviation from the original legend was that a fourth player had been added to the cast-the Nelan, a surrogate sibling for the Naman, although "sibling" didn't quite feel like the right phrase but translations were always tricky. But whoever he was, he was supposed to be an ally. Chloe shrugged, assuming that the Egyptian cult had foreseen Pete where the Kawatchee medicine men had not. Still, and disappointingly so, the Egyptian tale didn't give her anything meaningful. There wasn't any symbol representing her planet's name, nor was there anything about her people aside from the Numan.

God, if the research from Mexico and China was as sparse, then she'd never get anything. On the plus side, with indecipherable alien legends, Lex wouldn't be building any Death Stars any time soon.

Sighing, Chloe opened up the second bundle from the Chinese temple. After looking over the first few pictures, she very pointedly had to remind herself to breath. These were drastically different. She should have guessed that just by looking at the decorations from the temple's hidden chamber-a single dragon mask, adorned with large green meteor rock eyes. Clearly, her ancestor had not been the one to construct this chamber, and the cult members who did had not wanted him to return to it either. Glancing over at Lex, she was relieved a little to find him completely absorbed in the Kawatchee shots. She was a good liar, but she didn't need the scrutiny while she was obviously _reading _(not just staring blankly) at the symbols.

The story written on the Chinese temple was decidedly not about the Numan. It was about the old temple god, The Destroyer (and why wasn't that instilling her with confidence), and how he'd forced the priests of the temple to worship him. He'd been a harsh master and tortured the ones who hadn't followed him. Those he had kept around, well, he was prone to flash-frying them if they did anything to displease him. His wrath had spread to the surrounding village as well. He'd demanded gifts and, in this case, they ran toward the young, nubile, and unwilling virgin kind. The walls didn't mention if any of those girls ever made it back to their families, but Chloe was sure they hadn't.

Eventually, the priests had noticed what The Destroyer had not, that the rocks that had come with his flaming rickshaw (and how weird was it that her download came with that obscure of a word) debilitated him. In one last desperate move, they'd mobbed him, stabbing him to death with the weapons he'd inadvertently brought with him. They'd interred his body, surrounded by almost all the rocks, in the deepest bowels of the temple. The remaining stones had been fashioned into the mask to guard the artifacts he'd brought with him and to protect the warning the monks had left behind for whoever else stumbled across the remnants of their visitor.

However, the final panel revealed just why the monks had been so cautious. As he'd lain dying, the god of the temple had promised that he wouldn't be the last of his people, that the others who would come would be even worse, and that they'd use the artifact he'd brought with him along with several more others of his kind had already hidden to achieve unimaginable power.

Chloe noticed her hands shaking as she finished reading the passage. Well there was the knowledge Lex could never have. As far as she could tell, nothing overtly weapony had been found in the chamber, but there had been an intricate map, labeled in her language but with cryptic instructions that would take a long time to figure out even for her. She had no doubt now that, even if it hadn't been mentioned on the walls of the pyramid, that somewhere, once upon a time, another artifact had been in Egypt and that there would be one as well in Mexico.

The caves, of course, already held the altar-like structure that she was pretty sure was supposed to serve as the final resting place for the collection once one of The Destroyer's people put the pieces together. Once she did it.  
>Oh god and now she knew why the word underlings had come so quickly to her mind.<p>

What the Hell kind of planet had she been from?

And, despite all of it, despite the story of praise from the Kawatchee for their visitor who'd come and fallen in love with humans and the insistence by the Egyptian cult that the Numan was destined to be a savior, the tale hidden half a world away terrified her. It somehow seemed more real to her than the others and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because the monks had gone to great lengths to protect their story and the map, maybe it was because of how easily certain words were for her to translate or maybe, just maybe, it had to do with the symbol that they'd used to name The Destroyer. It was a fairly intricate design, a diamond surrounding a figure eight, and, on its own, paradoxically innocuous.

There was nothing terrifying about the word _air _.

And yet, she felt like she was missing something with it, that there was something else, like she'd seen it somewhere before. If only she could remember…

A shrill ringing assaulted her sensitive ears and, startled, she dropped the pictures to the floor.

"Lex Luthor here. Go ahead." He said, standing up and frowning apologetically at Chloe. "Yes, he does work for me. Are you certain? Yes, of course, I'll be over as soon as I can. Do you need me to fly in specialists from Metropolis General? Never mind. I'll be doing that regardless. Yes, thank you again, Dr. Scanlan." He finished, clicking his phone shut.

Having reassembled the sheaf, Chloe looked at Lex and frowned. "What was that about?"

"It's Dr. Walden. There's been an accident."

Chloe loathed the smell of hospitals. All her senses were heightened, although most of the time it was just the X-ray vision she noticed or the occasional or the annoying pitch of a dog whistle if she were out at the park, but her sense of smell was as acute as everything else she had. Hospitals to humans reeked of ammonia and bleach, but she could smell even more subtle things. God, some days, she was positive she could smell people dying, bodies rotting by inches in the ICU.

And there was something else, as their often was in her life, something disconcertingly familiar about the smells, something from when she was little, something as blocked out and foggy as the precious few memories she had from Before.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she forced herself to ignore the stench and, instead, to focus on what Dr. Scanlan was telling Lex. "One of your guards found him on the floor of the Kawatchee caves unconscious. When he couldn't wake him, he called an ambulance and had him brought here. Dr. Walden's been suffering from sporadic seizures ever since and something else I think you need to see."

"What?" Chloe blurted.

Dr. Scanlan didn't miss a beat as he reached over to open up Walden's eyelids. Chloe wasn't used to the open access policy with medical staff. She usually had to get records via other ways-usually hacking but also sweet talking Chad helped. However, doctors didn't answer reporters' questions. Of course, they did and despite the letter of the law, respond to any request billionaires and their plus one's had.

"There's been severe brain and ocular trauma." He added as he shone his pen light into Walden's eyes, revealing their milky white surface.

"Cataracts?" Lex asked.

"Not at all. We've never seen anything like it and these" Dr. Scanlan said, handing him a series of fMRI scans. "Should be impossible."

"Doctor," Lex said impatiently. "Pretend I didn't go to medical school for five minutes."

"Sorry, Mr. Luthor." Scanlan continued, genuinely apologetic. "The electrical firing in his brain is off the charts as is the oxygen consumption. His brain is working harder than it should to process something. In fact, I've never seen a human brain max out quite this way."

Chloe furrowed her brows, thinking over her own stabbing headache after waking up in the caves and the random bits of information _still _assimilating into her brain. "Information overload."

Lex frowned. "That's the best you can layman that? That's not even possible."

"It's not but that's what happened."

Lex's frowned deepened at the doctor's response. "So, tell me, doctor, how does a noted linguistic go into a coma researching a Native American language."

"If I could tell you that, Mr. Luthor, I'd be chief of staff in a much better hospital."

Chloe tuned out the rest of the conversation about insurance plans and employee benefits as she X-rayed Walden's still clenched hand. Just as she suspected, the same familiar silver disk was clenched between his fingers. Taking a deep breath, she slipped into her fastest level of superspeed and pulled the key from his grip and shoved it quickly in her coat pocket.

Lex stopped in mid-sentence and squinted at her, the confusion clear on his face. When she moved her fastest, humans couldn't follow it, but they always got the feeling something had happened, saw something out of the corner of their eyes they couldn't quite explain. "Did you move?"

She held up her hands and twisted them back and forth for him to see. "Been here the entire time."  
>"I see." He said the same way she'd imagine he'd proclaim the upsides of the hair club for men. "Doctor, I think you have all you need. If you'll excuse me, I have some business to attend to."<p>

"Of course, Mr. Luthor, Miss Sullivan." He replied, turning back to the monitors.

Chloe trotted after Lex as he purposely strode out of the room and into the reception area. "Hey, care to slow down a second?" She asked, panting for effect.

He turned to her, and his expression was almost as calculating as any look Lionel had ever given her. "What was all of this?"

"Excuse me?"

"You don't give me nearly enough credit, Chloe. I saw how absorbed you were in the pictures I gave you. That wasn't just frustration with being blocked on something. I saw the way you reacted, the emotions playing on your face. You _can _read the language."

"I can't!"

"And you did something in there. I don't know what, exactly, but I know you did."

She snorted. "Why? Because there was a slight breeze from a heat vent and your raging paranoia insists that I'm always up to something?"

"Because," He hissed. "Walden's fist was closed and then it was wide open after that moment. He had the octagonal disk and I'd bet my favorite Porsche that you have it now."

"I don't have to deal with this, Lex. I don't have any fucking piece of mystery metal and you know I don't."  
>"Then you'd let me frisk your pockets." He said, reaching toward her coat.<p>

She slapped at his hand as gently as any human girl would have. "I most certainly will not. You can use that stupid excuse to grope Dr. Bryce on her coffee break. I don't have anything and you know I don't."

"He had the disk. It's the only explanation." Lex continued, reluctantly backing off from her. "He had it and he put it in the slot in the caves. Whatever happened that _couldn't _have happened. It's all extraterrestrial fallout."

"Do you even know how crazy that sounds?" she asked, striding to the elevator and pressing the button. "There is no deep down Chris Carter conspiracy, Lex. He just…I don't know, hit his head or something."

"Which," Lex said, as he entered into the door. "Is why Dr. Scanlan had never seen anything like it."

"And this is Smallville Medical Center, not the Mayo Clinic. If it's not a painful cow-kicking accident or mono, they've never seen it. When the experts you'll surely fly in from Metropolis get here, they'll probably have a more reasonable explanation than 'I don't know.'"

"Or," He said, as the doors slid shut and the elevator started to rise. "Maybe I'm exactly right."

"Okay, fine then." She huffed. "Let's say your lunatic theory about alien technology and Native American lore is true. Then, according to you, Walden got the key, he activated whatever, and now he's a vegetable. Is that the knowledge you're so desperate to have? It's not going to enlighten you, Lex. It's going to lead to you being chained to a fucking bed in the catatonia ward at Belle Reve."

"Maybe not me." He said, running a hand over his scalp.

It was the closest he'd ever come to mentioning his mutation in front of her. The first few weeks in Smallville for whatever reason, he'd been comfortable enough around Clark to let a few incriminating facts slip. Sometimes the meteors made bone morphers and skinwalkers and, sometimes, they made a human nearly invulnerable, not that Lex didn't get shot or knocked unconscious. This being Smallville, it happened enough that Chloe would love to see his insurance premiums just for a good laugh. However, Lex always recovered. Injuries that should have taken weeks-bruises, broken bones, concussions-were always cleared up in a day or two.

"Lex," She said. "I know I'm the queen of meteor rock theories. I know…" she added, trailing off, not daring to use the term _meteor freak _in front of him, never for him.

"Then," He said, his voice oddly strained, "You can see why I don't think what happened to Walden would happen to me."

"But it could and it's not worth it. Whatever you think is in the caves, whatever you think might happen, it's not worth all of this."

"You don't really believe that." He said as the doors slid open again. "You've been down there more than anybody. You've been trying to unlock them too."

"Maybe I'm wrong then." She snapped and then, surprising herself, she reached up and grazed her fingers over his cheek. "Just drop it, for me."

_Because if you keep going with it, we won't be on the same side any more if we ever were. Because if you learn anything then you'll know about everything __**we've **__done all over the planet. Because I have more power than you think you do and I'll win. _

"I can't drop it, Chloe, not ever." He said, moving to step past her and then stopping when a harried courier stepped out in front of them. "What do you want?"

"Actually, I'm here for Chloe Sullivan." He said, passing the large envelope to her. "I was given explicit instructions to deliver this to her in person. Lucky me, small town."

Dumbfounded, she took the proffered package and quickly signed the invoice. "Thanks."

Lex frowned back at her. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"And here I thought screwing with the mail was a federal offense, silly me."

"I didn't touch it," Lex barked out and, by this point, the courier, who was still not taking a hint and waiting for a tip, started shuffling back nervously.

"No but it's private, whatever it is and none of your damn business. " She eyed the messenger and barely restrained the urge to flash him some heat vision. Sometimes it was cool to be able to make people scurry in front of you. "What? Do I look like I can afford to hand out tips?"

"Bitch." He said under his breath so low that anyone but her wouldn't have heard him.

"I've got it." Lex said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out five hundred dollars. The kid in front of him's eyes were wider than pie plates as he reached out for the tip. Lex, showing off that Navy SEAL training of his, moved back impressively fast for a human. "Not so fast. Tell me who it's from or you get nothing."

"Oh that's low, Lex. My private mail is private." Then, turning to the kid, she added. "I'll report you if you even breathe a word."

"And I'll quadruple the offer." Lex added pulling out an impossible number of bills. "This should tide you over for quite a while as you look for a new job."

Licking his lips, the kid looked back and forth between Chloe and Lex before finally blurting out, "It's from Swann Communications."

"Thank you." Lex finished, shoving the wad of bills into the kid's grubby hands.

"No, thank you." He said, before scurrying back down the hall."

"Now, was that so hard?" Lex asked, looking back to her. "You could have saved me 2500 dollars if you'd just said a single name, you know."

"I can't even say that I can't believe you did that. Considering everything with Nixon and how you were sniffing after Dr. Bryce's lab when my dad got sick, I'm just frustrated."

"It's not junk mail there, Chloe, but I already knew that. I ran into Lana at The Talon and she mentioned how annoying getting spammed on her school account was. She's been getting these annoying adult-type e-mails because the school's firewall was faulty and she asked me if LuthorCorp might be able to upgrade the school's email system as a show of goodwill. She mentioned you'd gotten over two hundred from somebody called V. Swann. She assumed it was a stalker, but I knew immediately who he was."

"So you just wasted 2500 dollars for something you already knew?"

"Oh, it wasn't a waste. I had what Lana thought was true. I had her version of events, but now I can see the envelope for myself and have your confirmation as well as the courier's. I _know _."

"Fine, I guess you do."

"Have you been scabbing on me?"

"Excuse me?" she asked, walking out the front doors and into the chilly night air. Despite her anger and mounting fear, she still pretended to shiver.

"He's the world's foremost expert of extraterrestrial communication and he's been contacting you. Did you bring your Kawatchee interest to him?"

"I most certainly did not. He started contacting me about Colin since I'm his editor and he wants original negatives of all the shots. I have some of them and I guess he couldn't convince _The Ledger _."

He arched a skeptical eyebrow. "And I'm supposed to believe that's it, Chloe? Do you really think I'm that stupid-the mystery narcolepsy, the scorched gym, all that you know about the caves that you shouldn't-contrary to whatever you've convinced yourself, I can add two and two."

"Or one, one, and one as the case may be," she grumped. "Lex, do you think I'd ever be dumb enough to confirm things for you one way or the other. All I can say is it is what it is. You see conspiracy theories everywhere you look, even while brushing your fucking teeth, most likely, and I'm not part of them. You just want me to be. Going to great lengths for prurient interests, aren't you?"

He reeled back as if she'd slapped him, okay, not her really, considering her strength, more like as if Lana had slapped him. "That's crude, Chloe."

"We've already established that and you've been around my dad long enough to hear his water cooler repertoire. Crudeness is a Sullivan family priority." She said, starting down the sidewalk to her house. It was only two miles away. She could walk it and not look suspicious this time. "Good night, Lex."

She heard the clicking of a his Lexus's locks behind her. "You don't want a lift."

"No, I am not in the mood." She said, turning back to him. "What the Hell do you want from me anyway? I told you I was giving you all I could."  
>"It's not enough. I want all of it." He said, his eyes glittering with the intensity of his words.<p>

"And you'll never get it, not from me, not the caves, not even from Lionel. You want everything, all the time, Lex and you can't fucking have it no matter how much money you have or how brilliant you are. So you have to ask yourself if it's worth it. We can keep being friends or you can go behind my back and disrespect me and we can be-"

"Enemies?"

"Extremes much?' She snapped, running a hand through her bangs. "I was going to say 'or not.' What we have is beyond dysfunctional but I don't have very many friends and I'm not the kind of girl who attracts them." Without meaning to, she looked down at her hands, the ones that could rip through steel and shatter bone without any effort. No, she'd never really fit in here.

Following her lead, Lex gave into his own tell and stroked his head. "I know the feeling."

"I want this." She said. "I want to be friends with you."

_Since freaks should stick together. _

"But?"

"This is so very tiring and one day, one of us is going to lose."

"I thought we weren't playing a game?"

"Weren't we always? We're playing chess here and one day it's not going to end in a checkmate. One day, one of us is going to push too hard-could be me, could be you-and the other is just going to take their hand and sweep the fucking board clean, total war."  
>He nodded, hunching his shoulders and pulling his coat tighter around him. He was shivering in the cold, his ears growing pink. He looked so impossibly young then and she was reminded that, despite everything, he was only 22. "I don't want that. You…you mean a lot to me, Chloe." And there was that look again, the one that told her that he was not as far gone over Helen Bryce as he'd like to be and that her secrets weren't the only thing drawing them together. "But I can't stop asking."<p>

"I know." She said sadly. "Neither can I."

He nodded and slid into his car. "So where does that leave us?"

"We keep playing even though we both know how it's going to end because, honestly, I'd rather have whatever the Hell this is for a little while and lose it then run away from everything."

"I know the feeling." He said, starting the ignition. "Chloe?"

"Yeah?"

"If you say Swann only contacted you to get to Creevy, I'll believe you."

She smiled bitterly at him. "No you won't."

He shrugged. "But I'll try and convince myself it's the truth. Will you come by the mansion tomorrow? We have so much more to do."

She shook her head. "I'm out Lex. I can't do this anymore, not after what happened to Walden. There are prices I'm not going to pay, and I hope you don't try paying them either. There are some things the Luthor name and bank account can't get you out of." Whatever her ancestors had left behind, whatever they'd been planning for the Numan was chief among them.

"I can't stop." He said simply, slamming the door and driving off into the night.

Chloe sighed and shuddered, though not from the cold. Clark and Lex were so very different; Clark gave everything, all the time, and Lex just took. Being with Clark always made her feel better, feel safe, and after a confrontation with Lex, she was left drained and scared. Yet, every time she spoke with Clark she felt drained in another way-zapped of her energy from trying to be everything he wanted. With Lex, despite the veiled threats and the stakes she was playing for or maybe because of them, she always felt as if she were humming with a certain energy.

God both of them wanted so much.

And she could give either of them all that they wanted.

She just wanted to be Chloe Sullivan-normal girl and hardnosed reporter, the girl who was allowed to screw up.

To be _human _.

Opening her envelope, she shuddered again and thought back over Numan and Segeeth and of the legend on the temple wasn't even sure she'd be allowed to be Chloe Sullivan-whoever the Hell that was-at the end of all of this.

Sighing to herself, she pulled out an old copy of a Time Magazine Man of the Year issue (starring Virgil Swann, of course) and a simple hand written letter:

_I'm waiting. _

"And I'm done doing that." She answered aloud before speeding home.


	9. Chapter 9

**9**

Chlo-bear, I still don't think I want you doing this." Her father said from across the kitchen table. It was early the next morning and she, Clark, and her father were huddled around one of the finest tables Walmart could provide. Pete had not been invited. It wasn't that she didn't love Pete. She did, but Pete wasn't family the way Clark was. There were some things so important that he just didn't get a vote.

Seeing Swann was one of them.

"Daddy," She said, smiling a little when Clark gave her hand a reassuring (and careful, he didn't want to break himself on her) squeeze. "It's time."

"And we're just inviting another slightly sinister billionaire to the party. Chloe, I don't want you doing this at all."

"Mr. Sullivan, with all due respect," Clark said, fiddling with his glasses. "Swann _knows _. There's no doubt in my mind that he does. He sought her out because of the symbols. He's the world's leading expert on space-based signals and transmissions not to mention all his work to improve on the SETI stuff. Oh and there is that part where Chloe proved she can read the language."

"And if I'd been there, you'd never been allowed near the damn internet." Her father growled.

"I needed to know." She defended.

"Besides, that's not my point. Swann's a scientist and I think, based on his work and his philosophy, that he's a good man, but he still has access to a lot of resources. He's had three days to get his hands on Chloe. If he'd really wanted to, he could have come for her."

She snorted. "Wouldn't have gotten far."

Clark frowned and blushed. "It's not a huge intuitive leap, Chlo. Space rocks to subdue a space alien."

For the first time since he'd been invited into the Sullivan family, Clark received a censure from her father. "Don't ever say anything like that to her again."

Clark's blush intensified and he squeezed her hand as tightly as he dared. "Sorry, Chlo. You know I didn't mean it like that."

"I know." She said, smiling back at him.

"I was making a point. He's brilliant, quite possibly the smartest man alive, and he works out of the New York Planetarium which, surprise, has remnants of the '89 shower. If he'd wanted Chloe bad enough, he'd have taken her. I don't think he wants to do that."

"What exactly do you think he wants, Clark?" Her father asked, his tone still harsh.

Clark's eyes lit up the way they had the first time he'd ever seen her speed. "He wants first contact but in a peaceful way. He's pestering her, sure, but he wants her to _seek _him out." There was awe in his voice as he finished and he stared back at her. She knew that look; it was both endearing and maddening. It said that even though he'd known all of her for over a year, he still found her amazing. It said that he loved her deeply. But it also said that he expected her to be extraordinary all the time, to be his hero.

God, why was it always so damn difficult?

"So I'm just going to let Chloe go all the way to New York to make him happy."

"Hello? I'm sitting right here. No one _lets _me do anything. I came to you because I was going to go today no matter what you said but I wanted you to know so you could feel a part of this."

Her father frowned and reached out for her other hand. "I heard that. You're going to see him alone, aren't you?"

She nodded. "I…it's not a family thing. This is about that other part of me."

"And it's about _Them _." Her father finished and she hadn't heard him sound more resigned or more upset since the day she'd woken up to her first waffle breakfast.

So it was like that.

"Clark, could you give me and daddy a few minutes. I need to talk to him alone."

Clark nodded. "No problem, Chlo." He said, as he stood up and shuffled off to the living room.

Once he was gone, she sped over to the side of the table and cuddled up against her dad's side. Anyone else, even Clark, would have yelped, but years of living with her had acclimated him to her apparating acts. "Chlo-bear," he said, sighing, "One day you might just give daddy a heart attack doing that."

"Sorry," she said, genuinely contrite. "Daddy, you know I love you don't you?"

"Well of course."

"No," she said, sitting up and bringing her hand to his chin, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "I mean I love you more than anything in any world, even more than I love Clark and that's saying a lot."

"Well you have only known him for two and a half years and we go way back." He added, giving her a ghost of his old smile.

"I'm serious, daddy. I love you so much and I'd do anything for you, do you get that? If I go off to Dr. Swann today and he knows enough to introduce me via some miracle to my birth parents, if any of my people are even here, I'd never go off and live with them. _Never. _I'd still come back to Smallville because my home's here with you and Clark and even Pete."

"I know, sweetheart."

"No, you really don't." She said and she could feel her voice speeding up the way it always did when she got worked up and despite herself, she couldn't stop it. "You _stayed _, daddy. Everyone else-my birth parents, Moira-they left. Hell, Clark and I might still break up. I mean, you tell me how young we still are all the time. But you're the one constant thing in my life, the one great thing, and I'd never forget that. No matter what, _you're _my family."

"I…thank you, Chlo-bear." He said, trying his best to stop himself from choking up and failing miserably. "I love you too."

"I know."

He grinned at her and, with the usual Sullivan panache, twisted her words back at her. "No, you really don't. I knew, Chloe. I always knew about you."

She frowned. "Well, duh, you saw me outside my spaceship and that still sounds like a statement only someone at Belle Reve would make."

He chuckled uneasily at the joke. "Not like that. I mean that I always knew how strong you were, even before your mom did."

"Moira." She corrected and then, leaning in closer to him, added. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the day of the shower we were driving in my car to see Moira's parents in Granville. When the meteors struck I had to swerve in order to avoid hitting them. I turned the wheel too hard, the car rolled, and we ended up pinned by our seatbelts to the roof. Your mom passed out and I was terrified she'd hit her head and gotten a concussion or something worse but I was trapped there. All I could do was scream and struggle."

"I'm guessing it came off eventually."

"No. It didn't."

She frowned. "But I know you got out. You couldn't have gotten me and then high-tailed it back to Metropolis if you hadn't."

"That's true but I didn't get me out."

She blinked wide eyes. "Then who?"

"You did, Chlo-bear. You showed up and I was shocked to say the least from the state of you-"

"Naked, you mean."

"Exactly. Naked and covered in ash. I could only imagine what had happened to your parents and I was afraid you'd get squished right there as you were peering at me, but you didn't. You just stood there, unbelievably calm, and then you ripped the door off the car and snapped my seat belt like it was no big deal."

"No way."

"Yes way," He added, grinning wryly. "I hurried because I was still more concerned with saving your mom than with wondering how a two-year-old could have superstrength, but the second I shimmied out of the car-"

"You saw the ship and then you knew exactly where my birth parents were."

He nodded. "Exactly."

Chloe bit her lip. She had to ask this next question, just had to, although she was dreading the answer. "Daddy, were you ever scared of me?"

"No. You'd just helped save my life and you were staring up at me with those same big green eyes you have now, jabbering up a storm in whatever it is your people speak, and you were the cutest little girl I'd ever seen. Then you got all excited and launched yourself-normal speed, of course-onto my leg and gave me a hug. I decided right then we were taking you home. I just needed a little time to ease your mom into the strength thing."

"That worked wonders." She grumped.

He sighed. "Chloe, your mom isn't as bad as you want her to be."

"She left." She said between gritted teeth. "That's all I need to know."

"I wish you didn't believe that." He said, sighing. "However, point being, I always knew just how special my little girl was. I took you home and I've never regretted it."

"Not even after everything with Moira leaving or being exiled from Metropolis or all you've had to give up for me?"

"Give up?"

"Daddy, you've been able to keep an alien-"

"Chloe! You know I don't like that word."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, you've been keeping an _intergalactic traveler _, a baby one with indiscriminant uses of superspeed and the tendency to babble in a very foreign language at least when she was little, hidden without any help for 13 years. You do covert better than the CIA. You could have been on the board of Wayne or Queen Industries or LuthorCorp, if you'd really wanted to. "

"And instead of the long hours and the corporate headaches I had my Chlo-bear so I can't really see the downside to any of it." He said, smiling. "I love you and I know part of everything is me being selfish that you're going to leave me if you find people just like you."

"I won't. I promise, daddy. No matter what, I'll be sleeping in my own bed tonight."

"If Dr. Swann doesn't make you an exhibit."

"He won't, daddy." She said, although she didn't feel nearly as confident about it as her tone implied. "I have to do this. I have to know why They sent me away, why everyone keeps leaving."

"Not everyone." He said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"No, the good ones still stay." She agreed.

He sighed as she stood up and started to the living room. "Be careful, Chlo-bear." And then under his breath, he added to himself. "And come home."

"I will, I promise." She said, before blurring out into the hall.


	10. Chapter 10

**10**

She'd wanted to go toe New York alone, but Clark had refused to let her go. He'd latched himself onto her the moment she'd entered the living room and, much like a tick, hadn't relinquished his grip. Superstrength, as he'd figured out, was only so advantageous. Chloe couldn't use it against humans. If she tried too hard to yank Clark off of her, she'd just accidentally hurt him and he knew she'd never risk that. So, stuck with a ridiculously stubborn boyfriend, Chloe'd run with him all the way to New York. The position had been awkward as Hell, but she'd managed. Just barely.

Now she stood in front of the reception desk of Dr. Swann's secretary, an annoying woman who smacked her gum and whose eyeglasses were latched onto her neck by a long, beaded chain.

"Dr. Swann does not see visitors ever, Miss Sullivan."

"But you don't understand." Clark started, giving her the full force of Kent puppy eyes. They were usually more persuasive than her beating the crap out of someone but failed to work on her. Bummer.

The secretary rolled her eyes. "No admittance means no admittance."

Tired with the nice guy route, Chloe oh-so-carefully slammed her fists onto the desk and shouted, "Look, get up off your lazy, internet solitaire playing ass and tell him that Chloe Sullivan is here to see him or, hand to God, I will sneak into his office myself and ambush him with an interview for my Podunk high school newspaper and tell him the reason I got through is because his sorry excuse for a secretary was too busy with Snood to do her goddamn job."

"Fine." The woman huffed, pressing the call button on her telephone headset. She then did a 180 so fast that even Chloe couldn't keep up with it. "Hello, Dr. Swann. It's Lydia, I'm so sorry to bother you but there's a girl here by the name of Chloe Sullivan and she insists that she has an appointment. She does? Oh of course, doctor, right away."

Chloe smirked back at her. "I'm on the list, aren't I?"

"Told you so." Clark added.

Lydia stood up and gave a quick nod. "Miss Sullivan, Mr. Kent, I am so sorry about everything. Dr. Swann's so particular about his privacy and I've been keeping him distraction free for over a decade and I am just incredibly sorry." She finished as she opened up the door to Swann's office.

"Well, you know how it is." Chloe added. "I'm just amazed at the personality change. I mean it's all so very 'horse of a different color,' you know?"

Lydia chafed at the reference. Shoving her hard enough that, if she'd been human, it would have been uncomfortable, the secretary added, "Just get on in there, kid."

The door slammed shut behind both of them and Chloe gaped at the cluttered collection of telescopes and radio equipment in front of her. "Off to see the wizard indeed," she muttered under her breath as she took Clark's hand. After a few moments, they'd passed through the maze of discarded equipment and came to a clearing through which Dr. Swann sitting at his desk was visible. Standing beside him was a woman about her father's age, maybe a little younger, with dark brown hair and wearing a smart red blazer.

"You said this was private." Chloe grumbled, glaring at Swann.

Dr. Swann moved his eyes over Clark. "I did but apparently neither of us took that part too literally. This is my partner, Dr. Bridget Crosby. She helped me build my company and she's been my right hand in organizing my communications project over the last thirteen years."

Chloe nodded. "Since the day after the meteor shower."

"Exactly."

The other woman moved forward just as Chloe and Clark made their way to the front of the desk. Holding out her hand, she said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Sullivan." Then, as a conciliatory after thought, she added, "And you as well, Clark."

Chloe took her hand and squeezed it just a little harder than she should have. Bridget didn't wince. Impressive. "Anything that goes on here today is private. Is that understood? It doesn't leave this room. I don't care if you have a team of underling scientists doing all the nitty-gritty for you. Whatever I say or don't say is for your ears only."

"We know." Dr. Swann added, the perfect picture of equanimity. "The building, as you might have noticed, is as well secured as any in the city and, considering recent events, you can imagine how many hidden video cameras that would be. However, there is nothing in this room at all. I assure you. My own now legendary paranoia and your condition would never allow for anything else. Nothing you say here will be repeated, ever."

"Condition?" Clark asked and it was clear from his tone that he was as offended as she had been.

"Perhaps that was not the best way to start things." He replied, his tone contrite. "I just wanted to assure both of you that you have our utmost discretion."

"We'd better." Chloe said, glaring back at both of them. "Now, you've got me here, what do you want from me?"

"Bridget, would you do me a favor and lower the screen, please?"

"Of course, Virgil." She said and her tone was surprisingly gentle, far too gentle for someone who was just an assistant. Chloe arched an eyebrow at Clark and he nodded back at her. He'd picked up on it too. Swann and Crosby were apparently partners in more than just the academic sense.

The other woman pressed a button on Swann's desk and a large screen slid down. A few subsequent presses later and the screen lit up with a myriad of symbols. The script moved in front of them, and Clark frowned at the intricacy of it, at the alternating lines speeding along in opposite directions. Even Chloe felt the encroaching vertigo as she processed it. This was the first time that she'd ever seen her language written out like that.

"What is it?" Clark asked, his awe and excitement genuine.

"It," Swann said, focusing his attention solely on Chloe. "Is a message from the stars, a signal that arrived the same day as the shower. It took me years to decrypt it."

"Does it look familiar?" Crosby prodded, her tone as eager as Clark's.

Despite her heart pounding in her chest, Chloe managed to remain calm. "No, what does it say?"

Swann frowned slightly, a look reminiscent of all the ones Lex had given her over the years, but he didn't press her further. Instead, he merely translated the message for Clark's benefit. "This is Kala Jor-El of Krypton, our infant daughter, our last hope. Please protect her and deliver her from evil."

Chloe swallowed at the gravity of it. Now that he'd pointed it out to her, she could understand exactly hiw the opposing swirls were supposed to be read. It was so clear now, even down to the now familiar sign of the diamond around the figure eight. It wasn't just "air;" it was the symbol for her birth family, for "El." Ignoring Clark's politely restraining arm, she walked forward and brushed the symbols with her fingers.

"Kala Jor-El. Krypton." She said, not even bothering to look back at Swann.

"I often wondered what happened to that girl, if she survived the trip, and then, three days ago I found a picture of the side of a high school branded with the symbol for hope."

"A high school in the middle of ground zero for the meteor shower." Crosby added. "It wasn't hard to suss things out. We started with _The Ledger _and looked back over it for anything that seemed weird or unusual. It led us back to your work at The Torch and all the 'infected' that had sprung up in the town over the years. At first we were overwhelmed. With Tina Greer and Jody Melville and so many others, it was obvious there were many girls in Smallville with abilities that one might describe as 'extraterrestrial.'"

Chloe tensed but let Swann continue. "But the one girl whose name kept turning up more than any other was yours, Chloe-the girl who saved Lex Luthor from a crazed employee at the plant and the one credited with saving a fellow classmate from a tornado. The papers said your quick thinking helped you find Miss Lang and get her into a ditch in time, but the evidence, even the doubt in your friend's interview, all pointed to a less mundane explanation. Add that in with all the odd events, all your mentions in police reports and _Ledger_stories..."

"…once we took into account the Luthor heiress scandal, things began to fall into place." Crosby finished for him and Chloe was amazed at the rhythm they had. It was the same easy, familiar one she and Clark shared. "Once we figured out that your adoption was a sham, well, it was obvious who you truly were?"

Taking a deep breath, Chloe forced herself to look away from the screen. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It all sounds very conspiracy nut-Magic Bullet to me." Clark agreed as she came back to stand beside him. Looking down, he added, "Come on, Chlo. We don't need to hear anymore of this."

"I know." She said, glaring at Swann. "I'm sorry, doctor, but you're wrong. I'm just Chloe Sullivan."

"We're not trying to expose you." He answered, still unerringly calm.

"There's nothing to expose." She finished. "I'm not the person you're looking for." She replied, yanking every so lightly on Clark's arm. "Come on. You're right. Let's go home."

They were half way to the door when Crosby called out. "It's your decision, Chloe, but if you leave now, we'll never invite you back. You'll go straight to the no admittance list with everyone else who wants a piece of Virgil. This is it. Either you can live without knowing the truth or you can't."

"What truth?" She barked back over her shoulder. "You think I'm some kind of alien. That, doctor, is a fantasy."

"Correction. We highly suspect what you are but cannot prove it to be the case," Swann said. "However, there is a second half of the message. If you leave now, I will never show it to you."

It took everything she had not to blur back to his desk and shake the fucking answers out of him, and she was pretty sure it was only Clark's strong hand on her back that kept her from doing just that. Instead, she turned around and let him lead her back to the front of Swann's desk.

"Why are you doing this to her, doctor?" Clark asked once they'd come to stand in front of the doctor once more.

"Because I need to know." He finished, saying "know" in the same reverent tone that Lex always did. God, he was every inch the scientist Lex was, but, then again, he wasn't quite. He had left the decision up to her, even now. She could walk and he'd let her. His curiosity would probably consume him, of course, if it hadn't already over the last thirteen years, but he'd let her leave and continue living her lie. Of course if his burning need to know had consumed him then eventually so would hers. He knew that. She paused and looked back and forth between Clark and Swann. There was something about them both, something earnest and stalwart and trustworthy, that reminded her of Dr. Willowbrook as well.

They were truth seekers and scientists the lot of them, even Clark in his amateur way, but they respected knowledge. They wanted the truth for the truth's sake just as she did. Swann, just like Clark and Dr. Willowbrook before him, wasn't trying to seize power or to manipulate her.

He just wanted to know.

"You need to know you're right." She finished for him.

"No." Crosby corrected. "_ We _need to know that, after all of this, that we're not actually alone in the universe. Besides," she added, her tone strangely gentle again. "We wanted to make sure that the lone little girl we've thought so much about survived. We need to know she's okay."

No, Chloe realized. Gentle wasn't the word.

_Maternal _was.

And that threw her more than anything had since she'd woken up on Route 8.

Swann might have wanted to solve the puzzle, but Crosby had become invested in her story.

"I…you're right." She finally admitted, fighting her instinct to look away from both of them. She'd only told two people in her entire life and both of them had, even if it had only been for an instant and they'd both gotten over it, looked at her fearfully when she'd revealed it. This time it was different. Before her, Swann smiled and Crosby let out a sigh of relief. They were actually happy to have found her and how weird was that?

"Thank you, Kala." Swann replied.

"It's Chloe, please." She corrected.

"Are you sure about that?" Swann asked.

God no, she really wasn't.

"Virgil, save the philosophical discussion for another time." Crosby chided softly pressing the button again as the screen flashed to a new configuration. "Can you read this, Kala?"

She ignored the use of her birth name. Chloe had a feeling that, after thirteen years of thinking of her like that, Dr. Crosby and Dr. Swann weren't going to easily switch over to saying "Chloe Sullivan" instead.

Sighing, she read the message aloud for Clark's benefit. "Of course. It says, 'We will be with you Kala Jor-El for all the days of your life.'" She frowned. "That's it? My whatevers bother to send me to Earth and send out this huge SOS and that's all of it? There's no instructions on how to phone home? What? Is a girl just supposed to grab a Speak-and-Spell and hope?"

"Kala-" Swann started.

"Chloe!" She snapped, starting to pace back and forth, despite Clark reaching out to steady her. "There's supposed to be more. I mean, this doesn't tell me anything but two names. I don't know if I'm going to keep changing or what I'll end looking like when I'm full grown. I don't know why everything keeps feeling different every damn day; why the sun has such a pull over me. Hell, you're supposed to be the key. You're supposed to tell me where the rest of them are and how to find them!" She was panting by the end of it, more worked up than she'd been even through the week's worth of interrogation sessions with Lex and her father. It couldn't be true. This couldn't be everything her birth family was ever going to give her.

It just led to more pressing questions.

Swann swallowed and glanced warily at Crosby. "You can't read star maps can you?"

"Why the Hell would I be able to do that? I was raised in Metropolis, not Krypton. I can write an article in under thirty minutes, but I don't know anything about space. It's not a race memory thing." At least she was pretty sure it wasn't but sometimes, despite herself, she'd look up at the sky and just know things, feel drawn to certain patterns, especially the wolf's head Kyle had shown her.

"I can." Clark said hesitantly, crossing over to the large map behind Swann's head. "I'm not you, sir. I can't even pretend to have that kind of knowledge so if I'm reading it wrong, please feel free to correct me."

In spite of the situation, Chloe couldn't help chuckling. "Clark's been very polite about everything but he's like your number one fan. He's been going on about your Nobel winning paper ever since you contacted me."

Crosby smiled wryly back at her. "You're dating someone who's in love with astronomy?"

"Well, we'd been friends for a while before he knew about the ALF thing and how'd you know that?"

The other woman's smiled widened and she gave Swann's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Same way you did, I suspect."

"Yeah." Chloe said, blushing slightly and turning back to Clark. "You've got the floor right now."

"Thanks, Chlo." He said and, then, biting his lip added, "Dr. Swann, if it's not too much trouble can I get your autograph? I have a copy of the last thing you wrote for _Science _with me and oh…" He trailed off, flushing a bright crimson.

Swann's tone was gentle when he replied. "It's quite alright, Clark. I have a legal signature and I'd be happy to sign whatever you have on the condition you tell us all what you know."

"Oh, right, well it's what you do really but this." He said, pointing to a highlighted dot on the map. "This is the point you traced the signal to. This is where Krypton is." Then he looked back at her and shuffled nervously from foot to foot. Chloe felt her chest tighten. She knew that look. It was the one he'd given her after all the cows on his farm had been poisoned or when he'd informed her about the hostage situation at LuthorCorp tower. Whatever he said next would not be good.

"What?" She asked.

"I…Chlo, I could be wrong, but the way the map's labeled…I don't think that Krypton's around anymore."

That was just insane. "What do you mean 'it's not around anymore?' Planets don't just disappear, Clark."

"I'm afraid," Crosby said, her voice as sincere and gentle as Martha Kent's had ever been. "That that's exactly the case."

"No…I…that can't be right." Chloe said, feeling her legs beginning to give out on her. Clark noticed her stumble and hurried to her, wrapping strong arms around her shoulders before she collapsed. Leaning into him, taking comfort from him as she always did, she whispered, "It's not true."

"I'm sorry." Swann answered, still frustratingly calm.

"You're sorry? My entire everything doesn't even exist anymore and all you can say is sorry? The Hell? Why don't you tell me where it went and what happened?"

"I don't know." He said simply.

"But planets don't just poof out of existence."

"Then pick any scenario you'd like-war, natural disaster, pestilence. Is it that hard to believe that people as advanced as yours were had the same kind of problems with arms races that we do now?" Swann replied.

"But you have to know more." She pleaded.

"We only know what the message told us. You have all that we do." Crosby added.

"But I can't be the only one. You don't understand at all. You're supposed to tell me that there are others like me and that you know where they are, that I got lost or something in the moving plans."

"There were no other messages." Swann said.

"Well what is she supposed to do now?" Clark asked, his tone angrier than she'd heard it in a long time. "You just drag her here for a session of show and tell. You get excited over meeting your traveler and she gets what? The honor of being told she's the only one? Do you even know how cruel it was to tease her like that, to make her think you had more answers to offer her?"

Stressed to the breaking point, Chloe laughed. "'Only one,' huh? Makes me sound like I'm Tigger or something."

"You're not." Clark said firmly. "There have to be others somewhere. A whole advanced civilization going around colonizing other planets doesn't just disappear."

"That may very well be the case." Swann said, "But as far as we know, Kala Jor-El is the only Kryptonian here. I'm so very sorry about that. I truly am." He smiled sadly and glanced down at his useless limbs. "I know something about loss. It's not the same, not at all, but I know how angry you must be."

She shook her head and when she spoke it was barely above a whisper. "I was angry when my father showed me my ship and told me I wasn't even human. What I feel now-it's emptiness."

"I wish we had better news for you, Chloe." Crosby added, "But if you should ever need anything from either of us. If you want us to go over the message again or to share our research…." She looked thoughtfully over at Clark, "If you ever need to know more about yourself and your limits-"

"You mean if I want to be lab ratted?"

She shook her head. "No. I most certainly don't mean that, but if there ever comes a time when you want to know if certain things are possible, things that we can't have," She added pointedly, running her hand over the back of Swann's chair. "Then we'll help with that as well."

Clark, finally catching up with the discussion, blushed again and Chloe swore his voice broke when he answered. "Oh gee, that's really great and did I mention I'm still just fifteen?"

"It's okay." Chloe said, squeezing his hand. "That's so on the bottom of my list until I at least win a Pulitzer, maybe three. Besides, I think we're done here. There's nothing else to be said."

"Yeah, there really is." He corrected. "Dr. Swann?"

"Yes Clark?"

"What is she supposed to do now?"

And then she knew. She had a moment of insight akin to those uncanny leaps of logic Clark enjoyed. "'The fault lies not within our stars but in ourselves.'"

"Huh?" Clark gaped.

Crosby smirked. "You are quick."

"I was always quick. I doubt it's entirely a Kryptonian thing." She snarked.

Swann waited for his tube to take another breath and then spoke. "There aren't any answers for you out there, Kala. You're going to have to make your own destiny."

She nodded and looked back at the first screen, her focus narrowing in on the symbol of her house for she knew now exactly what it was. "That's what I'm afraid of."


	11. Chapter 11

**11**

"You're back." Her dad said, as he followed Clark down the stairs, rolling his eyes slightly as the much taller guy had to duck his head under the stairwell.

"Yeah," she said, not looking up from the tablet clutched in her hand.

"You know, when you got back, I was expecting you to make an announcement. Come by the plant to drag me out of work, anything to celebrate the fact that you were sticking around our good old Cow Town." He finished as he clomped down the last few steps. His tone changed from glib to concerned as he spied how red and swollen her eyes were. "Chlo-bear?"

"Oh daddy," She said, throwing her arms around him the second he touched her shoulder. "You were right. I shouldn't have gone."

She felt her father's chin rustle against the top of her head as he turned to look at Clark. "We're not going to have to move to another continent to avoid Swann's wrath, are we?"

"No sir." Clark assured him, stepping forward himself to put a hand on her shoulder as well. "He didn't do anything to hurt her. In fact, quite the opposite. He offered to help her if she ever needed anything, no questions asked."

"Well that's a pleasant change of pace." He said. "Then what's wrong, sweetheart?"

Sniffling, she raised her head from his chest. "I…it was too much. I wasn't ready to hear what they had to say."

"Then there are others?" He asked, forcing a smile to his lips. It was the kind he'd always reserved for when Moira's more annoying relatives had visited at Thanksgiving when she'd been small.

"No, that's just it, daddy. There aren't any others. My planet's gone."

She heard his heartbeat slow down to normal with his relief, but his tone was as gentle and concerned as ever. "Oh, Chlo-bear, I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as I am. I thought there'd be someone else, anyone else, I really did, and now I know there's not. I know now that I'm always going to be alone." As soon as she said that, Clark flung his arms around her fully and she was squished in between the two most important people in her life. It was a good thing she was Kryptonian or she'd have been suffocated by all the affection.

"You're not alone, Chlo." Clark added, his tone as genuine as ever and they so needed to bottle whatever it was about him that was so Norman Rockwell. The sincerity in his voice came close to cajoling her into believing that she'd be alright. It was infinitely more effective than the arms wrapped around her.

"You have both of us, sweetheart." Her dad finished.

She nodded and pulled away from the both of them. "Thanks." Holding out the tablet for both of them to see, she added. "I know what this is now."

"I was kind of going to ask about that." Clark said, blushing at the way he'd just let his inner geek out.

She smiled back at him. "It's the ship's heart." She said as she slid it into the appropriate spot in the ship. It activated then, hovering above the floor and glowing brightly. Chloe blinked as it peeled back, revealing an impossibly small chamber inside. It baffled the mind to think she'd ever fit in that.

Her dad echoed her thoughts. "It's hard to believe you were ever that small."

"Speak for yourself." Clark joked. "She's still microscopic."

"Whatever, Paul Bunyan." She joked uneasily, squinting at the now familiar concentric circles spiraling through the ship's seat. Pausing, she reread it three or four times, trying to ensure that she'd gotten the translation right. She was hoping she'd been wrong, that her download was seriously flawed but based on what she'd already read from Lex's research, she didn't think so.

"Chlo-bear." Her father said, trying to break through her disquieting silence. "What does it say?"

"It's a message from my biological father. I…Jesus. It _has _to be wrong."

"What's it say?" Clark prodded, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders.

Chloe repeated the message verbatim without stopping, without even hazarding a glance back at her family. "'On this third planet from the star, Sol, you will be a goddess among men. They are a flawed race. Rule them with strength for this is where your true greatness lies.' My God. They didn't even think to include a nice 'We love you, Kala' or 'Good luck on the fucking alien planet we marooned you on.' Nope, just 'go out and be all that you can be as a goddamn alien dictator.'" She was shouting by this point, but she didn't care. The basement had plenty thick walls so exposure wasn't a worry.

"Chlo-bear," her father started. "Maybe you read it wrong."

"No, I didn't. It's that never fail alien technology downloaded right into my brain. I can read it just fine and it says that I'm here for conquest. I finally have my _raison d'etre _and it's to destroy all humans."

"To be fair. It doesn't actually say that, and so what?" Clark said, shrugging. "You heard, Dr. Swann, you don't have to do anything that _They _wanted. They're gone, Chlo, and you're here and they don't have any say in who you are. I mean, look at Lex. His dad practically wants him to be the second coming of Alexander the Great but it doesn't mean he always listens to him. If he had, the plant would have been shut down and he would have left back to Metropolis by now and let Smallville die."

"We're playing for slightly bigger stakes here, Clark." She snapped, beginning to pace. "So I don't want to do it, but what if it's fate or something and I can't avoid it? Is this the kind of person-and I'm using the term generously-I'm going to grow up to be?"

"Sweetheart, you're going to be fine. This doesn't matter."

"How can you say that? I'm like a one woman _War of the Worlds _!" She shouted, finishing her pacing and breaking down into tears.

Her dad was there then, wrapping her up in a hug. "You're not going to do anything to hurt anyone, Chlo-bear. You're not."

"You can't know that," She hiccupped, the tension still straining her shoulders even as Clark started to rub them. "Are you still happy you brought me home now? You should have just left me there for Uncle Sam-the metaphorical one-to take instead. It would have been safer for everybody."

Her father shook her and it surprised her. "Don't ever talk like that, not ever. I'd never regret taking you home, and I don't believe anything that stupid tin can has to say. I'm your father. I raised you and know you and you're nothing like that."

"I wish I was sure."

"I am sure." Both her father and Clark chorused.

She nodded and let herself rest against her father's chest. If she'd been any other girl, she'd have believed him, but she wasn't and that, of course, was the problem. She was an alien with alien senses and she perceived everything. She could smell the stench of him as he sweated from nervousness, could feel the tenseness of his body, could hear his heart jackhammering in his chest as he lied.

Her father was as uncertain as she was.

_Do you regret anything yet, daddy?_


	12. Chapter 12

**12**

What took you so long?" She asked as Clark entered into The Torch office.

She'd made a beeline for it after she'd removed the tablet from her ship, citing some flimsy excuse about not trusting the paper's well-being in the hands of Pete and Lana. In reality, she hadn't wanted to watch her father's less-than-subtle worried glances or hear Clark's barrage of Jonathon Kent-approved clichés. However, Clark being Clark, she'd expected him to seek her out eventually. Honestly, Chloe was grateful that he'd given her a few hours to calm down and just worry on her own without having to put on a superbrave face for both his and her father's benefits.

"I wanted to give you a little space like all good boyfriends should, you know?"

"And now?"

"Well there's a limit and I figured The Torch had to have been ready for the presses by now. It's almost ten, Chlo, and you still hadn't come home."

"I know." She said, sighing and typing a few last corrections into her editorial.

He let out a sigh of his own and pulled his rolling desk chair over to her. Sitting down, he placed one large hand on the back of her wrist to get her attention. "How are you holding up?"

"Not well," She said, her voice brittle. "What do you want me to say, Clark? That I'm thrilled to know with a hundred percent certainty that I'll never meet anyone who's even my species? Or how about the part where my birth parents were apparently meglomaniacal psychopaths?"

"I'm sorry about that."

"That helps."

"I'm serious."

She nodded and looked back at him. "I know you are; you always are."

"I know how scared I am about who my real parents are or were. I know what it's like to wonder if there was something wrong with them and, despite everything, to be afraid that you'll end up like they did." He looked away as he spoke, uncomfortable with his disclosure.

Chloe frowned. Clark had never ever referred to his biological parents as his "real" ones before. She knew how much he loved the Kents and how much they adored him, just like she and her dad. But she wondered if, deep down, there was always something drawing them to the people they'd come from. She'd certainly felt like that all through the ordeal with the caves. "Well mine are everything I was afraid they'd be and more. Isn't that fucking fantastic?"

"Chlo, your dad's right. You don't have to listen to them. It's not who you are." He smiled sweetly down at her and she saw all that hope and admiration in his eyes again. God, you could put his family's tractor on her back and she'd never feel it but all his faith made her shoulders bow. "You're a hero."

"You just think that."

"Um, I think the fact that me, Pete, Lana, and Lex are alive despite living in Smallville says a lot about your hero status."

"Clark, don't."

"Why not? You don't have to be modest, Chlo."

"I'm not. I…there are things I've done that if you knew, you wouldn't look at me the way you do."

"Don't go with the cryptic now. If there's something you did then just go ahead and tell me. Don't let it weigh you down like this." He grabbed both her hands in his and she let him pull them toward his lap. "There's nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you."

"Even if I take over the world?" She said, breaking into a nervous giggle.

"You're not going to do that. Get real here."

She snorted. "You do know you're talking to Darth Vader, right?"

"You know what I mean. Like we said, just because your biological parents were nuts, whatever they wanted or tried to arrange doesn't have to affect you, Chlo. You can just ignore it."

"No I can't. All this craziness, this hail the conquering hero vibe? It's not just them," She said, looking down at her lap. "My family's been here before."

He frowned. "No, your people have been here before."

She shook her head. "My _family _has been here before. One of my actual ancestors, not just some random Kryptonian, was here in China about five hundred years ago. Lex has the proof locked up in his safe. My great, great, however- many -greats, grandfather came here and started his own cult."

"Well," Clark added thoughtfully. "The Kawatchee seemed awfully attached to their Numan, the original one I mean."

"Yeah well, his monks in China sure as Hell weren't. Clark, my grandfather, fill in your preferred number of greats here, tortured people, killed them and kept a whole village terrified for years. They had to murder him to get rid of him, and they were desperate enough to do it because he was a monster. Everything you'd never want in a dictator."

"And that's not you, Chlo."

"And it's in my family and it's here, somewhere." She said, gesturing toward her chest. " You remember how I got all quiet and freaked out after Swann's message came? How I was mumbling to myself?"

"Yeah?"

"Well that was because even then I started suspecting just what my heritage really was. Clark, how many people do you know who just recall 'underlings' like clockwork in their second language?"

He frowned. "Faulty metaphor. It's a download."

"And it _still _is the one of the easiest words for me to translate along with the symbol for my house. 'Hope' was hard to figure out at first but that word, the one all about subjugation and superiority, that one came naturally." She said, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks and stifling her urge to cry out.

Clark leaned over and hugged her and it was infinitely better than with her father. Her boyfriend was the ultimate Pollyanna. He always saw the best in everyone and everything, even when she and Lex probably didn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not after Whitney. And Phelan. "It's not going to be like that with you. I _know _it's not."

And God he was so earnest and so confident and she just wanted to believe him.

Maybe just for a little while.

Nodding, she wrapped her arms around him, careful as always not to squeeze too hard, and let herself believe him. If Clark Kent said it wasn't so, then, damn it, it wasn't, at least not for the night. Besides, despite everything, she could almost feel the same conviction he had. After all, both he and her father were right. Whatever her biological parents had wanted, they were dead. It's not like they could force her to start conquering people. Hell, they weren't even ghosts, just a few empty threats uploaded into a ship.

And yet…

There was something else there, maybe just something about her, apart from being a Kryptonian. Although she complained about them often, she still reveled in the power she had, liked being able to use them as she saw fit, enjoyed shaping other peoples' lives to her whims. Maybe it was the real reason she'd sought Lex out, not just loneliness or their shared freak status or even that burning need to know.

No.

Lex was kindred. They both lived in the grays, did what it took to survive and to make others sorry that they'd ever crossed them. They'd gladly ruin lives under the right circumstances.]

Had done so, in fact.

She got that vertigo feeling again, that disorienting rush she'd first felt, leaving the mansion that morning after Homecoming, except this time, she was pretty sure she'd already started falling. Chloe shuddered against Clark, trying to find some comfort in the hands stroking her back.

"Shh," he said, in that same tone he reserved for the easily spooked colts on the farm. "It's going to be okay, Chlo, I promise."

"I know." She said, her voice falsely bright, all the while thinking of down home crucifixions, billionaire villains-in-waiting, and meglomaniacal parental edicts. Above all, though, she thought about the sigil of her house-something she could almost remember having seen Before-the mark for air and for the Els, etched into a hidden chamber as an omen.

No, everything was not going to be okay. Of that, she was certain.

She was paddling madly in the ocean again, sputtering for breath, and the wave she'd been dreading had finally crashed down upon her.

And more were going to keep coming, until there was nothing left of Chloe Sullivan at all.


End file.
